Li Fangchun on Land Reform

Li Fangchun “What Does it Mean to ‘Explain Antiquity’? On the Classics, History, and Dao of the Chinese Revolution—An Exploration Based on the Land Reform Movement in Northern China’s Liberated Areas”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by Mark Czeller (DPhil Candidate, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford)
 
Introduction
 
Land reform has long been considered a key ingredient in the Chinese Communist Party’s victory in the Civil War, and this enormous project to reshape rural society remains central to the Party’s own narrative about the historical sources of its legitimacy. Since the loosening of ideological restrictions and the gradual opening of archives that began in the 1980s, scholars in China have called into question many elements of the orthodox narrative about land reform, suggesting that pre-revolutionary inequality was not as great as the Party had long claimed, nor were landowners as cruel and exploitative. Even assuming that land reform was economically rational and socially progressive, was so much violence and death really necessary? Among the most prominent scholars to have recently addressed these issues is Yang Kuisong 杨奎松 (b. 1953), Professor of History at East China Normal University and a leading scholar of CCP history. Yang has written an in-depth narrative of land reform that, while demonstrating considerable historical empathy for the Party leadership, is nevertheless critical of the methods and outcomes of the campaigns.[2]
 
In the text translated here, Li Fangchun 李放春 (b. 1974), research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at Chongqing University, challenges Yang’s interpretation of how the CCP leadership understood rural society. Li frames this as part of a broader critique of much scholarship on revolutionary history since the 1980s and 90s, which, in his reading, has been characterized by an underlying scepticism or even hostility towards the CCP’s revolutionary project. Such a direct and thorough-going critique of essentially an entire generation of scholarship already makes Li’s article noteworthy; but Li goes further, framing his argument with a conceptual apparatus borrowed from the Republican-era debate concerning the authenticity of China’s textual canon. It is an intriguing and provocative approach that seems designed to stimulate debate and disagreement.
 
Li’s frame borrows three approaches to Chinese “antiquity 古” that emerged during the Republican period: doubting 疑, believing 信, and explaining 释. “Doubting Antiquity” was a self-conscious movement spearheaded by figures like Hu Shi 胡适, Qian Xuantong 钱玄同, and especially Gu Jiegang 顾颉刚, with Gu famously arguing that many records of the “ancient past” had in fact been fabricated during the Warring States period, or even later. The philosopher Feng Youlan冯友兰 interpreted this as a kind of Hegelian dialectical process: “doubting” was a reaction against earlier uncritical belief, but it had gone too far in its rejection of the traditional canon, leading Feng to call for a third approach: “explaining.” Li Fangchun finds this to be a useful analogy in the context of approaches to revolutionary history: over the past decades, “doubting” has become the dominant approach to revolutionary “antiquity,” by which Li means the orthodox narratives of revolutionary history that had enjoyed hegemonic status until the 1980s. Some “believers” have emerged to challenge the “doubters,” but, Li argues, both “doubting” and “believing” need to be superseded by a more detached attitude that aims at “explaining.” Li fleshes out this framework with a number of binary notions from classical scholarship— “classics 经” versus “history 史,” “evidential 考据” versus “doctrinal 义理”—to frame his analysis.
 
At the empirical level, Li focuses his critique on Yang Kuisong’s suggestion that the CCP leadership was detached from rural reality and mechanically borrowed the Soviet blueprint for land reform, assuming that land was highly concentrated in the hands of a small number of large-scale landowners. Li shows in considerable detail that the CCP leadership was well-informed about the structure of land ownership: they knew that the “landlord class” in China was primarily composed of small-scale landowners, that this landlord class as a whole did not own as much as 70-80% of the land (a figure that appeared in public pronouncements by CCP leaders), and that in its base areas in Northwest China, inequality in landownership was considerably lower than in the south. The point, according to Li, is to understand how the Party reconciled these complicated realities with its mission to resolve the “land question” through revolutionary means, a mission that had “gradually become a point of faith among revolutionaries.” Understanding this process requires detailed engagement with the historical and discursive processes of revolution, which “doubters” are generally unwilling to do, as they are content to simply show that orthodox narratives are empirically unsupported.
 
The evidence Li marshals seems sufficient to demonstrate that Yang’s portrayal of the CCP leadership as mechanically copying the Soviet model is inaccurate. What is less clear, however, is that Yang’s error on this point supports Li’s broader argument. Why should we think that the reason Yang erred was an underlying hostility to the Party’s revolutionary project? When claiming that the CCP leadership thought that the ownership of rural land in China was highly concentrated, Yang cites public pronouncements by Mao to the effect that 10% of the population owned 70-80% of the land. Li shows that Mao and his colleagues did not actually believe this, and suggests that such statements were meant to help create momentum for radical land reform. In effect, Yang portrays the CCP leadership as misguided but honest, while Li shows that they actually knew better.

Li would disclaim any notion that the Party leadership was engaging in cynical manipulation, as he argues that there was a genuine tension between the leadership’s intention to improve the lot of the rural poor through resolving the “land question,” and their knowledge that inequality in landholding was not sufficiently high for this to be possible simply by redistributing landlords’ land. However, the evidence he presents about the Party’s awareness of the discrepancy between actual inequality in landholdings and its public claims could also be used to sustain a cynical interpretation, of the kind put forth by Qin Hui in the translation that accompanies this one. In other words, the political implications of the empirical disagreement between Li and Yang are far from straightforward.
 
One might also doubt how useful it is to speculate about other scholars’ subconscious or unstated political motivations. Li generally asserts rather than demonstrates that the scholars he criticizes are politically motivated, and his claims sometimes enter into the domain of psychologizing, as when he states that those he calls “doubters” are “constrained by a subconscious intention” 情结 to “negate [revolutionary] antiquity.” Li calls for an approach that “avoids bringing contemporary politics into historical research,” but, on the one hand, a scholar like Yang Kuisong would surely deny that his scholarship is driven by a political agenda rather than the pursuit of historical truth, while, on the other hand, it seems that scholarship on revolutionary history cannot avoid having political implications, and so it seems unrealistic for historians to aim for the elimination of any subconscious political influence on their work.[3]

Li implies that his own approach is free from the influence of contemporary politics, but does, for example, his use of classical analogies to conceptualize the revolutionary past not contribute to the—hardly apolitical—project of establishing a continuity between CCP rule and Chinese tradition? (for more on this theme on the Reading the China Dream website, see here and here, among others).
 
These reservations notwithstanding, Li’s essay is an original and stimulating attempt to address questions that are faced by all scholars of revolutionary history. Few would deny that orthodox narratives about the Chinese revolution involve significant omissions, inaccuracies, and outright falsehoods, but Li is surely right that, as historians, we cannot be content to simply identify the ways in which orthodox narratives are misleading, and should aim to produce explanations that take seriously the ideals motivating the historical actors we are studying.[4]

Translation
 
Introduction
 
Revolution was an important political choice of Chinese men and women with high ideals 志士 seeking modernity, and is also an unavoidable topic in the study of modern Chinese history. In this article, the term “the Chinese Revolution” refers specifically to the large-scale social revolution that took place with mass involvement and with the participation and leadership of a modern political organization, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A major political consequence of this revolution was the CCP’s armed seizure of political power and the establishment of the People’s Republic. In the subsequent “Mao era,” the newly established People’s Republic was in a state of continuous revolution, which should thus be seen as a continuation of the “Chinese revolution.”

This continued until the death of the founder of the People’s Republic, which saw the complete rejection of his line of “continuous revolution” and the abandonment of political ideal of “class conflict as the guiding principle” by the new generation of political leaders, who shifted to “economic construction as the key” and promoted the line of “reform and opening up.” At this point, radical communist revolutionary practice can be said to have come to an end. This great half-century revolution powerfully transformed Chinese society and profoundly influenced the historical course of China, East Asia, and the entire world. Even today, China remains in a “post-revolutionary” state, and the “vestiges” of revolution—political, social, ideological, and conceptual—are clear for all to see.
 
In contemporary China, the question of how to understand the Chinese revolution and its political heritage has become a focal point in political and academic circles and in the public sphere more broadly. This question is closely connected to explorations and debates about a range of further issues of great significance: the practical implications of the “Chinese way,” the nature of contemporary Chinese society, and China’s direction in the future. In this respect, research and reflection on revolutionary “antiquity” can be said to be a kind of “distinguished learning” 显学 in contemporary China.
 
In my view, a highly notable aspect of research on Chinese revolutionary history over the past 20 years has been a great tide of “doubting antiquity 疑古.” As part of this political and academic wave, the orthodox narratives of the Chinese revolution—as well as the entire tradition of revolutionary narratives, including the French and Russian revolutions—have been powerfully questioned, subjected to relentless empirical scrutiny, and even entirely overturned. “Doubting antiquity” is a venerable academic tradition in China, one that was uninterrupted from the Song to the late Qing. There was also a movement to doubt antiquity in the 1920s and 30s in the field of ancient history, with Hu Shi and Gu Jiegang as trendsetters, which resulted in rich scholarly achievements exemplified by the seven volumes of Debates on Ancient History 古史辨.[5]

In recent years, the “doubting antiquity” movement in the field of revolutionary history has given rise to some highly valuable academic research. At the same time, this movement clearly exhibits more destructive than constructive force. It must also be noted that this movement, which emerged in a particular historical context, was, from the beginning, not driven solely by the pure academic spirit of truth seeking, but also frequently by a desire for political change. With political will calling on the weapons of scholarship, it has been difficult for “doubting antiquity” to restrain its destructive urges, and has easily fallen into the trap of moving from an initial resentment of antiquity to its negation or even destruction.  As a result, revolutionary history, having broken free from the restraints of orthodox dogmatism, has been unable to establish its own academic purpose and effectively spur on in-depth exploration into and reflection on the historical and cultural meaning of the Chinese revolution, often instead becoming a tool in service of various new “isms” and “roads.” This is a very unfortunate state of affairs.  
 
This article is an attempt to provide a corrective to the current trend towards doubting antiquity with some of my views on the current state and the future of revolutionary history. I do so through the topic with which I am most familiar: the land reform movement in the liberated areas of North China. In the 1930s, Feng Youlan identified three tendencies in the study of ancient history—believing, doubting, and explaining--and wrote in favour of last of the three.[6] I believe this analysis is also applicable to contemporary revolutionary history,[7] and argue that, in order to explore the “Dao” of Chinese revolutionary practice—a concept I shall discuss in detail below—it is necessary for us to resist the politically motivated urge to “negate antiquity,” and to move from “doubting” to a more academically rational and constructive method of “explaining.”
 
A rupture between “classics” and “history”: the tide of “doubting antiquity” in Chinese revolutionary history
 
“I would rather lose antiquity by doubting it than by believing in it.”  Hu Shi, “Letter to Gu Jiegang”
 
Shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the history of the Chinese revolution became a required course at institutions of higher education throughout the country, and thus came to enjoy the status of “the classics 经.” The courses in the “History of the Chinese New Democratic Revolution” and the “History of the CCP,” created in the 1950s and 60s, through the 1986 “History of the Chinese Revolution” course, and including the 2005 “Outline of Modern and Contemporary Chinese History”—in which Chinese revolutionary and CCP history are the main threads—can be seen as a continuous sequence, all of them being constitutive elements of the orthodox “classics and histories” 正统”经史”. [8] In these texts, the political function of what is called “history” is to prove the correctness of the “classics” of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, thereby demonstrating the “unity of history and logic.”
 
In recent years, however, as the study of revolutionary history has become more open and less confined by orthodox historiography, an increasingly serious rupture between the “classics” and the “history” of the Chinese revolution has gradually emerged. This rupture has frequently been produced by “heretical 异端” history which departs from official narratives and rebels against the orthodoxies of “classical learning 经学”. The motivations of researchers outside the establishment to discover and use “history” not only is not to “illuminate the classics 明经,” but is often quite the opposite: to purposely question or even overturn orthodox “doctrine 经理” (for example, the notion of “class struggle” between landlords and peasants in standard accounts of land reform.) I call this academic trend the tide of “doubting antiquity” in the study of Chinese revolutionary history.
 
The “antiquity” being doubted is none other than the revolutionary narratives—and historical materials supporting them—that have been produced under the direction of revolutionary ideology. The attitude of these doubters toward orthodox narratives of revolutionary history is that one must “read critically,” which they attempt to do through methods such as “returning to the original story,” “finding empirical evidence,” “debating,” and “reversing verdicts.” A typical example of this from recent years has been the restoring of the historical truth about classical “tyrannical landlords” like Liu Wencai and “Zhou Bapi.”[9]

I myself, while involved in an oral history project on land reform as a student at Peking University, engaged in similar forms of doubting antiquity, and unearthed popular memories of “benevolent landowners” in northern Shaanxi.[10] Individual or collective memories dispersed among the people (i.e. oral “unofficial histories 野史”) quite naturally come to constitute a challenge to state memory (i.e. orthodox history writing.) Unearthing and making available such “evidence” has become an important starting point for doubting antiquity.

Of course, besides oral history, recently opened archives on revolutionary history as well as rediscovered historical materials (e.g. rich Republican-era social investigation materials) have also become important sources of support for “doubting antiquity.”[11] In a certain sense, the joint use of oral history and archival documents has become the “dual evidence method 二重证据法” of revolutionary history.[12]
 
We might note that the tide of “doubting antiquity” in fact first originated from the political sphere, and gradually made its way to academic circles and the public sphere. Not long after the “Cultural Revolution,” Chinese politics took a drastic turn, and Mao Zedong’s theory of “continuous revolution” was systematically eliminated and negated. The CCP’s intense criticism of the theory and practice of “Mao Zedong’s errors in his later years” and the Cultural Revolution cleared the path for doubting antiquity in the study of revolutionary history.

Starting from the rejection of the Cultural Revolution, “heretical” research appeared on the anti-Rightist campaign and the Great Leap Forward, land reform and the campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries, the war of liberation (or CCP-KMT civil war), the Yan’an period, the Long March and Jiangxi Soviet period, all the way back to the Jinggangshan period. For a period of time, “doubting antiquity” in the study of the revolution—from “near antiquity” (symbolized by Tiananmen) to “middle antiquity” (represented by Yan’an Baota mountain), and on to “far antiquity” (symbolized by Jinggangshan)—was all the rage.
 
This movement to doubt antiquity, which gradually spread throughout academia and the broader public sphere, powerfully challenged and weakened the truth and authoritativeness of orthodox revolutionary classics and history, and for a certain period had an intellectually enlightening effect. However, it is necessary to note that this movement was not motivated by a pure academic spirit of seeking the truth, but was shot through with a clear desire for political change. At first, the tide of doubting antiquity in academia was a response to the political call to “oppose feudalism” within the CCP, and sought to uncover the “feudal” aspects of the Chinese revolution.[13]

Afterwards, the target of this movement gradually became the legitimacy of the Chinese revolution as a whole. Most drastically of all, the revolution even came to be seen as a “detour” in the process of China’s modernization, and as such was thoroughly negated. While abandoning the French and Russian revolutionary paths, many scholars turned to embrace the Anglo-American path of modernization. Looking back now, what this “farewell” and change in direction reflects is precisely the global trend of the last two-three decades, namely the decline of the communist movement and the triumphant global advance of capitalism and its neoliberal ideology.
 
With the ideology of “the people want revolution” having lost its former ability to inspire, it was inevitable that narratives of the Chinese revolution as a historical epic would gradually lose their attractiveness as well. To use the case of the land reform movement, with which I am most familiar, doubting and negating antiquity has basically replaced the “extolling antiquity” model of the past, becoming the dominant trend in scholarship.

“Doubting antiquity” in connection with land reform in the post-Mao era began with the memoirs of political elders.[14] They began by accusing political “dead tigers” like Kang Sheng and Chen Boda, moving gradually from specific individuals and events to calling into question the entire legitimacy of the land reform movement. More recently, some scholars have focused their efforts on proving the falsity of the revolution’s “doctrine 经理” on the issue of China’s pre-revolutionary land distribution (i.e. the claim that the purpose of the Chinese revolution was to deal with the severe inequality of land ownership, what was called the “land problem”),  calling into question or even overturning the orthodox narrative.[15]

For example, Qin Hui has sought to systematically deconstruct the logic of revolutionary classics and history on the “land question,” starting from the [geographically] partial thesis that “there were no landlords in Guanzhong [in central Shaanxi],” and moving to a general refutation of the view that pre-revolutionary Chinese society was feudal and defined by landlord-tenant relations.[16] Moreover, some scholars have come up with empirical descriptions of “villages without landlords” and a “China of small landlords” in order to redraw our image of the socioeconomic realities of pre-revolutionary rural China. I call this line of “doubting antiquity” thinking, which is headed by economic historians and supported from the flanks by social and Party historians, “land question evidential scholarship 土地问题考据学.”[17]
 
Under the academic banner of “empirical scholarship 实证,” doubters often place “history” and “classics” in opposition, seeking not only to diminish the historical reality of the “land question,” but to deliberately portray “land reform” (and the broader “land revolution”) as politically absurd.[18] Taken to an extreme, this use of “history” to negate the “classics” sees revolutionary narratives as a collection of lies and myths. For the evidential scholars, the so-called “land question” was no more than a political fancy or mistaken judgment lacking empirical foundation, or even a deliberately fabricated political myth. As a result, the history of the Chinese revolution, built on the foundations of the “land question,” becomes no more than a piece of contemporary mythology ”accumulated layer upon layer 层累地造成.”[19]
 
We should mention as well that a tide of “believing antiquity 信古” has recently emerged in opposition to the doubters. Believers mostly come from members of the public outside the political and academic establishment, and are mostly active on the internet. Their basic approach is to “return to the classics and believe antiquity,” that is, to defend the “basic principles 义理”of the Chinese revolution. I call this line of thinking the “doctrinal school 义理派” of the Chinese revolution.
 
Looking specifically at the topic of land reform, a recent example is Yang Songlin’s 杨松林 (internet name Lata Daoren 邋遢道人) debate with evidential scholars like Zhao Gang, Qin Hui and Gao Wangling.[20] In “Without Land Reform there would be no Chinese modernization,” Yang Songlin restates the historical necessity of land reform so as to defend the principles of the revolution. However, his line of analysis is substantially different to that found in orthodox narratives. To begin with, he rejects the idea of an “economy of self-sufficient small farmers” on logical grounds, and summarizes the characteristics of traditional China’s socioeconomic system as “small farmer plus markets.” In other words, he defends the view that rural China was capitalist rather than feudal.

In terms of land distribution, he considers it to have been “large in the middle and small at the extremes,” that is, “(large) landlords, making up about 3% of the population, owned 30% of the land, small landlords and rich peasants, making up 5-6% of the population, owned 40% of the land, and poor peasants, making up 90% of the population, owned about 20% of the land.” According to Yang, the issue was that capitalist agriculture would inevitably lead to the concentration of land and an increase in the productivity of labour, with the consequence that some peasants would lose their ability to make a living from the land and would become “vagrants.” This contradiction was the basic reason for the cyclical disruptions in traditional Chinese society. In this explanatory framework, small landlords and rich peasants become the focal points of the contradiction, and large landlords are mostly irrelevant to the overall picture. Without redistributing land belonging to small landlords, it would be impossible to satisfy the poor peasants’ need for land.
 
A major achievement of the believers has been to undermine the discursive hegemony established by the doubters, thereby fostering debate and serving as an academic and political check on the tide of doubting antiquity. At the same time, the believers have also had major achievements in reconstructing revolutionary classics.  Certain revolutionary principles 革命义理that seemed to have been entirely extinguished have come back to life thanks to their efforts to “restore the classics.”
 
In my view, the doubters and the believers have both made contributions to re-evaluating the Chinese revolution, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. However, the debate between the factions frequently goes beyond the bounds of academic research, and becomes an expression of dividing lines and antagonisms in the field of political ideology. The “explaining antiquity” approach that I propose seeks to unite elements of both doubting and believing, while also transcending them. This requires us to maintain a certain distance between “antiquity” and the present, and to avoid bringing contemporary politics into historical research.

The limits of “doubting antiquity,” through the example of the “land question” 
“The present urge to doubt antiquity and the past urge to believe antiquity are equally illogical.”  Wang Guowei, “Response to Rong Geng”
 
A problem shared by doctrinal and evidential scholars of land reform is that they tend to focus on generalized structural or systematic analyses of the revolution, often lacking in-depth investigation of specific discursive and historical processes. For example, in the essay cited above, Yang Songlin seeks to prove the historical necessity and rational justification of the land revolution by reference to the systemic contradictions of traditional China’s society and economy. The specific historical process of land reform becomes unimportant. However, no matter how much the advance of history may seem necessary, it cannot be denied that, in the final analysis, the revolution was “stirred up 闹出来的,” and in the process of “stirring up,” concrete revolutionary practice often had little to do with abstract logical inferences.

In the small-peasant capitalist society portrayed by Yang Songlin, “poor and landless peasants” making up 90% (or even more) of the rural population were the motive force and backbone of the Chinese revolution. However, if we consider land reform in the old liberated areas of Northern China in even a little detail, we soon discover that the composition of these “poor and landless peasants” was actually very complicated. At the time, even the radicals represented by Liu Shaoqi (the so-called “poor and landless peasant line”) held that “poor and landless peasants” (including “lower-middle peasants”) only constituted half of the population of the old liberated areas. If the land requirements of these people were to be met, it would be necessary to infringe upon the interests of some of the “90%.”  This was precisely the crux of land reform in North China.
 
A similar problem is present in the reasoning of the evidential scholars. For example, Qin Hui has sought to use Gini coefficients to show that land concentration and income inequality in China prior to the revolution was low, thereby “scientifically” disproving the principles of the revolution.[21] However, this line of reasoning, which seeks to negate the legitimacy of the revolution solely from the perspective of economic history, is in fact no more than a new version of vulgar materialism. If land ownership was not highly concentrated, then the Chinese revolution is “without justification 无理,” and ought not to have taken place. Thus, the evidential scholars’ line of reasoning often leads to a kind of attitude according to which the Chinese revolution was senseless, a “detour 弯路,” or a “mistake.”
 
The purpose of doubting antiquity is often not to explain antiquity, but to negate it. Constrained by this subconscious intention 情结, the problématique 问题意识 of the doubters working on revolutionary history often remains at the level of doubting the “classics” and negating their “principles” 疑“经”非“理,” making it difficult for these scholars to deeply enter into concrete historical processes in order to seek out the inner structure of the revolution. Specifically with reference to research on land reform, a typical manifestation of this is that scholars of the doubting antiquity school are often content to spend their time merely calling into question orthodox ideological claims, instead of seeking to contribute to the accumulation of historical knowledge and the advancement of historical explanation on a foundation of careful, high-standard academic dialogue.
 
Here I would like to elaborate on this issue by reference to two recently published articles on land reform by Yang Kuisong. These essays were first published in 2007 and 2008, and were subsequently published as the first two chapters of his collection “Research on the Founding of the PRC”: “A Historical Investigation of the Changes in the CCP’s Land Policy on the Eve of the Founding of the PRC” (hereafter “Land Policy”), and “The Landlord-Rich Peasant Question in the Context of the New China” (hereafter “Landlords and Rich Peasants”).[22]
 
In “Land Policy,” Yang Kuisong follows the spirit of empirical research, seeking to trace in detail the process through which the CCP’s land reform policies changed, and seeking to reflect on the error of violent radicalization in the process of land reform in China’s liberated areas. In the conclusion, he writes that this was neither Mao Zedong’s intention, nor did it arise from the requirements of mobilization for war, but instead “originated in an error of judgment by the CCP leadership concerning rural realities and the state of class relations.” Yang argues, first, that “a mechanistic, rigid conception of class struggle together with an organizational structure in which power was highly centralized greatly strengthened the subjective element in political decisions made by the leadership of the CCP.”

Second, he argues that the leadership of the CCP was very isolated from rural realities, relying as they did on reports transmitted upwards from one level to the next, and thus lacking deep, concrete understanding.  As a result, it was inevitable that they would depart from objective reality in formulating land reform policy and therefore make mistakes.[23] Nor did CCP leaders “learn appropriate lessons” after the establishment of the PRC, and as a result, “all of what took place in 1947 was, in many places, repeated when land reform took place throughout China in 1951.”[24] In other words, CCP land reform can be said to have been one mistake followed by another.
 
In “Landlords and Rich Peasants,” Yang Kuisong carries on the “antiquity-negating 非古” line of thinking in his criticism of the land reform movement. His criticism is that in launching land reform, the CCP ignored China’s national conditions and blindly followed the Soviet model, leading to a great error. Yang writes:
 
"The result of this method was that a considerable proportion of China’s most skilled agricultural producers, often together with their children and grandchildren, were sacrificed to political movements… To overlook the basic fact that China’s rural economy was overwhelmingly dominated by small peasants and small-scale landownership, and to simply consider China the same as Russia—as characterized by a high degree of land concentration, such that it would be necessary to destroy the landlord class in order to liberate the peasantry from the oppression of the landlord system—was to disregard China’s specific circumstances."[25]
 
The mistaken judgment referred to in this essay is CCP leaders’ blind faith that “land was highly concentrated” (that is, that landlords and rich peasants, making up at most 10% of the population, owned 70-80% of the land). In “Landlords and Rich Peasants,” Yang Kuisong cites a large amount of historical material, and on this basis portrays a pre-revolutionary social structure of “small landlords” (meaning that the overwhelming majority of the landlord stratum was composed of small-scale landholders owning about 10 mu per capita), with the aim of falsifying the view that land was highly concentrated.
 
On China’s “land question” and the formerly standard claim according to which landlords and rich peasants, making up 10% of the population, owned 70-80% of the land, many historians before Yang have undertaken substantial work to “doubt antiquity.” What Yang adds that is new is the sentence that “to simply consider China the same as Russia—as characterized by a high degree of land concentration…was to disregard China’s specific circumstances.” Yang’s source for the claim that the leaders of the CCP “believed that land ownership was highly concentrated” is Mao Zedong’s political report at the Yangjiagou conference of late 1947, “The Current Situation and the Tasks Ahead.”[26]
 
Is Yang right?　
 
First of all, is it true that the CCP “simply considered China the same as Russia” and therefore “believed that land was highly concentrated?”
 
At the start of 1926, Mao Zedong published “An Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society and Their Attitude towards the Revolution” in the first issue of “The Chinese Peasant.” In this essay, he clearly differentiated between large and small landlords:
 
China's big landlords are the deadly enemies of the Chinese peasantry, the true rulers of the countryside, the real foundation of imperialism and the warlords, the only secure bulwark of feudal and patriarchal society, the ultimate cause for the emergence of all counterrevolutionary forces. If we count as big landlords those who control 500 mu or more, they probably constitute (together with their families) about 0.1 percent of the peasantry, or approximately 320,000 persons in a total peasant population of 320 million for the whole country (calculated as 80 percent of the total population).
 
The small landlords are more numerous than the big landlords, numbering at least two million in the country as a whole. Most of them are owner-peasants who have raised themselves to this status by hard work… Their methods of exploitation are three: high rents, usury, and the exploitation of surplus labour. People of this kind suffer to a substantial extent from the oppression of the warlords and big landlords, and as a result have considerable spirit of resistance, but they are also afraid of "Communism," and therefore have a contradictory attitude toward the present revolution.[27]
 
In 1928, the CCP’s Sixth Party Congress passed a resolution on the land question which pointed out: “within the landlord class, small landlords have a more important position than large landlords (land is not highly concentrated in individual hands, but the concentration of land in the hands of the landlord class as a whole is very severe).” It went on to note: “the smaller the landlord, the more severe and cruel his means of exploitation, and the harsher his conditions for renting out land.”[28] Earlier, when the congress was discussing the land question, Cai Hesen 蔡和森 made a speech in which he criticized Li Lisan’s report on the peasant and land questions on the grounds that it did not clearly explain “the ultimate tendency of land relations 土地关系的最后趋势.” His view was the following: “The report analyses matters from a static rather than a dynamic perspective. The static analysis is that large landlords are few and middle and small landlords are many, with the result that China’s situation in terms of the monopolization of land is different from that of Russia. From a static perspective, this is indeed the case.”[29] 
 
Judging from the words of important CCP figures like Mao Zedong and Cai Hesen, the early CCP’s understanding of the land question cannot be reduced to “simply considering China the same as Russia” — quite the opposite.
 
Next, did CCP leaders who had been based in North China for many years after the Long March really think that land there was highly concentrated?
 
In 1936, when Mao Zedong was interviewed by Edgar Snow and the land question came up, he did indeed provide the estimate that “landlords, rich peasants, and usurers who are 10% of the population own 70% of the land.”[30] This was probably based on the impression he had formed as a member of the Land Committee of the Rural Affairs Department of the Wuhan Government, and its empirical basis was probably no more than some areas of Hunan, where land ownership was highly concentrated. 　
 
The East Asian Research Centre of Harvard University has edited and published additional important materials from among Snow’s notes, including the record of his interview on the land question with Wang Guanlan 王观澜 (at the time director of the Land Ministry of the Central Soviet Government and Chairman of the Central Agricultural Committee.)[31] In this interview, Wang revealed the data in the Party’s possession at the time concerning land ownership.
 
In Snow’s telling, Wang Guanlan was extremely confident in the data for Jiangxi, according to which “8-10% of the population owned 40-50% of the land.”[32] Moreover, Wang thought that this estimate was roughly applicable to most provinces in the south. Beginning from the Ruijin Soviet era, Wang Guanlan, who had studied in the Soviet Union, was one of Mao Zedong’s trusted sources on the land question. His views can be taken to represent the actual understanding of the CCP’s leaders at the time. Setting aside northern Shaanxi for the moment, Wang Guanlan’s estimate for the southern provinces of 8-10% of the population owning 40-50% of the land was probably quite close to the actual situation.[33]
 
As for the Shaanxi data, they were based only on the situation in Northern Shaanxi. Moreover, the CCP’s Soviet Government and the Red Army had only just arrived in Northern Shaanxi, and were not yet familiar with local conditions. Wang Guanlan noted that the extent of variation between locations was considerable. For example, land was highly concentrated in Mizhi and Suide, with landlords often owning 2-3 thousand shang (one shang is about 3-5 mu), with annual rental income of 2-3 thousand dan.[34] There were four or five landlord families of this “grade” in Suide alone. Further south however (meaning the area surrounding Yan’an), the situation was very different: there was a lot of land and not many people, to the extent that in some places people had more land than they could bring into cultivation.[35] It must be said that Wang Guanglan’s understanding of the land situation in Northern Shaanxi was largely accurate.[36]
 
In the 1940s the CCP, having taken root in Northern China, gradually became more and more familiar with local conditions. For example, in the autumn of 1941, Peng Zhen, who was then the secretary of the CCP Centre’s North China Bureau, reported to the Politburo in detail on the work situation in the Jin-Cha-Ji border region. This report was very highly regarded by Mao Zedong, and later edited into a volume titled “Report on the Party’s Work and Concrete Policies in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region” to serve as study material for rectification. In his report, Peng Zhen revealed the results of an investigation into over 4000 households in 25 villages across 9 counties in the Beiyue region of Hebei and Shanxi: landlords, who constituted 3% of the population, owned only 9% of the land, or 26.6% with the addition of rich peasants. Just over half (50.94%) of the land was in the hands of middle peasants, who made up half (50.12%) of the population.[37] 
 
In 1942, Liberation Daily published an investigative report on the land issue in northwest Shanxi. The text noted that according to a report on nearly 1000 villages in 18 counties, landlords, making up less than 3% of households, owned less than 15% of the land, or 27.1% with rich peasants added; middle peasants, making up a third of households, owned over 45% of the land.[38] The same year, Zhang Wentian personally led a group to investigate the land issue in Xing county, and wrote a report on what he found. His finding was that the landlord (and rich peasant) economy had been shrinking as a result of war and revolution, and the amount of land owned by middle peasants (and poor peasants) had risen considerably. “In most villages, middle peasants own more than half of the land.”[39]
 
In December 1945, a small volume titled “China’s Peasants” written by CCP member and economist Chen Hansheng was published in English in India, in which Chen extolled the CCP’s achievements in governance during the war.[40] In it, he provided a general estimate for land distribution in China proper: landlords and rich peasants, making up 10% of the population, owned somewhat more than half (53%) of the land. Chen noted, however, that the situation differed considerably from north to south. In areas south of the Yangzi, landlords, constituting 3% of households, “own 47% of the land, whereas north of the Yangzi (not including the northeast), landlords make up 5% of households but only own 12% of the land.” The degree of land concentration was far lower in the north than in the south.
 
The figure of 12% indicated by Chen Hansheng was an estimate for the land owned by landlords throughout northern China.[41] In reality, in the areas long under CCP control, the landlord economy was under even further strain due to the ravages of war and the movements to reduce rents and interest rates. It is reasonable to infer that landlords owned even less land in areas long occupied by the CCP. For example, according to statistics about 20 villages in 9 counties in old-CCP areas of northwest Shanxi compiled by the research office of the Jin-Sui sub-bureau, landlords constituted 2% of households and owned just 5% of the land. The proportion of middle peasant households, by contrast, had risen from a third to two-thirds, and these households owned more than 70% of the land.[42] Of course, such statistics are not necessarily accurate, since they may have been influenced by “subjectivism” on the issue of improvements in the economic conditions of peasants in “liberated areas.”

However, it is an evident fact that in old CCP areas, middle peasants (or owner-peasants) were the majority already prior to land reform. After the Party Centre issued its “Directive on the Land Question” (known as the May Fourth Directive), the Jin-Sui Sub-Bureau produced a policy document titled “How to Designate Rural Class Status” in order to guide land reform. This document unambiguously stated that middle peasants were “the most numerous among rural households in China, whose contribution to agricultural production is particularly large.”[43] This was an important document in the course of Jin-Sui land reform, and was later praised by Mao Zedong as an instance of “Marxism” in the border regions.[44]
 
Given the foregoing, it is very difficult to believe that CCP members (and especially high-level leaders) “simply considered China to be the same as Russia, believing that land was highly concentrated,” as Yang claims. As for the exaggerated claims about inequalities in landholding found in the “Outline Land Reform Law” (as well as in “The Current Situation and Our Tasks Ahead”), these were most likely intended to influence public opinion in favour of the realization of “land to the tiller,” and cannot be considered to reflect the CCP’s actual understanding of the situation of land ownership.
 
There can be no doubt that the Chinese Revolution was profoundly influenced by the Russian Revolution, and that the CCP frequently drew lessons from and followed the Russian example. However, Yang’s view that the land reform movement was no more than a blind imitation of the Russian model is overly simplistic. To identify the root of excessive violence during land reform as top leaders’ “mistaken judgment about rural realities and class relations” therefore seems not to get at the actual mechanisms of revolution.
 
I should state at this point that my intention in engaging in scholarly criticism regarding the “land question” is not to target particular pieces of research or specific arguments, but to use this as a means to illustrate the general problem inherent in the “doubting antiquity” style of scholarship. On the one hand, it cannot be denied that the doubters have successfully called into question the accuracy of orthodox revolutionary narratives and have revealed the political mythology inherent in them; on the other hand, the work of doubters frequently stops here, and rarely produces more novel or profound problématiques, ones that enable us to deepen our understanding of the process of revolution. The current doubting antiquity movement often falls into the trap of negating antiquity, and cannot produce analyses or explanations of true intellectual depth.[45] In some sense, it could be said that scholarship which doubts antiquity with the aim of negating it is representative of the current “paradigmatic crisis” in the study of the Chinese revolution.
 
For this reason, I believe that study of the revolution should not begin with a subconscious attitude of “politics in command” 下意识地”政治挂帅,” contenting itself with calling into question official, orthodox historical narratives and going on to negate antiquity, but should instead directly face the discursive and historical processes of revolutionary practice, seeking to produce new problématiques, and attempt to open new paths towards “explaining antiquity.”
 
Moving towards “explaining antiquity”: seeking the “Dao” of the Chinese revolution
 
“We all know that the traditional views of our predecessors regarding the ancient past frequently lack empirical foundation; but we must also keep in mind that these views emerged for a reason.”  Feng Youlan, “Preface,” in A History of Chinese Philosophy
 
 The “antiquity” in “explaining antiquity” is none other than the historical process of Chinese revolutionary practice. In terms of its overall historical nature, the issue is not to “doubt,” nor to “negate,” but to “explain.”
 
Of course, just like the doubters, I believe that separating truth from falsehood 辩伪 is a necessary step in historical research. Where I differ from the doubters is that I believe the purpose of historical research is not merely to get rid of the false and preserve the true. Sometimes, simply getting rid of the “false” actually makes it more difficult for the complete historical picture to emerge. In other words, what is called “false” is often an important constituent of history, so it is necessary for the researcher, having clarified the question of truth and falsehood, to include the “false” into one’s overall evaluation—only then can in-depth understanding of historical practice be achieved. For this reason, in contrast to the doubters’ enthusiasm for using “history” to negate the “classics,”  “explaining antiquity” seeks to overcome the opposition between “classics” and “history,” and to understand the Chinese revolution from a higher plane.
 
Let me continue with the example of the “land question.” Following the accumulation of large amounts of empirical evidence, our understanding of the distribution of land prior to land reform has increased considerably. Today, we can quite reasonably conclude that basic motive force of the Chinese revolution was not necessarily, as orthodox narratives would have it, class contradiction and class struggle arising from the “land question.” In other words, the “land question” may not have been the “basic question” of the Chinese revolution. However, unlike doubting antiquity, explaining antiquity does not have to base itself just on establishing the facts about the “land question.” As a part of revolutionary discourse, the “land question” is itself an important constituent element of the Chinese revolution, one that deeply influenced its course.[46] If we ignore or fail to grasp the discursive-historical nature of the “land question,” then our understanding will be unable to progress beyond the confines of vulgar materialism.
 
Specifically with reference to land reform in north China, the question researchers immediately face is the great contrast between revolutionary political discourse on the “land question” (based primarily on impressions of south China) and the socioeconomic realities of northern China—this is what I have referred to elsewhere as the “Northern China problem.”[47] In light of this, how was the programme of “land to the tiller” to be implemented in the liberated areas of Northern China, particularly the old liberated areas? How could land reform produce the spectacular revolutionary scene engulfing each village and each household that revolutionary radicals hoped for?  What, in the final analysis, did “class struggle” mean in the course of land reform in North China? When it was too much at odds with rural realities, leading to severe “excesses” and mistakes, how did revolutionary actors, under the constraint of reality, return to practical rationality? In short, how was revolution “made” 革命到底咋“闹”的? 
 
After the establishment of the PRC, Mao Zedong made the following insightful conclusion about the “general laws 一般规律” of revolutionary history: “The history of revolution shows that the old relations of production can only be destroyed if first public opinion is created 首先造成舆论, revolution is carried out, and political power is seized [by force].”[48] Clearly, these “general laws” are not constrained by economic determinism, but on the contrary emphasize the agency of revolutionary actors. As a participant and important leader of the Chinese revolution, Mao Zedong placed great importance on “creating public opinion” as a key step in revolution, and “resolving the land question” was an enormously effective piece of “public opinion” (that is, revolutionary ideological discourse.)[49]
 
In my view, one of the motive forces of the Chinese revolution was undeniably the sense of national self-strengthening stimulated in the process of resisting and responding to foreign interference. This sense of self-strengthening impelled revolutionaries (who were often radical intellectuals) to reflect on and criticize their own culture, and to seek paths to transform and adapt it.[50] In this process, “solving the land question,” as a combination of a concern with concrete issues 经世意识 and Marxist-Leninist theory, gradually became a point of ideological faith among revolutionaries. In this respect, “solving the land question” was similar to the ideology of “worshipping god” for the Taipings, with the difference that the “land question” was a transcendent ideology in the guise of a worldly issue, with “the tiller has his land” as its desired social outcome. It should be obvious that simply showing that “God” did not exist in China does not significantly aid our efforts to understand the historical process of the Taiping Rebellion, and the same is true for our understanding of the revolutionary discourse of the “land question.” We must grasp its discursive and historical dimensions that are beyond the scope of empirical truth and falsehood.
 
On the one hand, as an important motivator of revolutionary action, the ideological discourse of “resolving the land question” genuinely influenced historical practice; on the other hand, there was great tension between revolutionary “public opinion” and social reality. This tension was precisely what created the structural space for revolutionary action (i.e. for “stirring up/making” revolution).
 
Let us consider once again the example of the old liberated areas of northwest Shanxi. According to the statistical data provided by the Jin-Sui sub-bureau on 13 villages in 7 counties in old liberated areas concerning land ownership and agricultural yields, landlords and rich peasants made up about 8% of the population and owned just 12% of the land, while middle peasants made up about half of the population and owned nearly 60% of the land. What is even more noteworthy is that the amount of land owned by landlords per household and per capita was lower than the corresponding figures for middle peasants. In terms of land ownership, the difference between landlords and middle peasants in the old liberated areas of Jin-Sui was no longer a matter of quantity but a matter of quality (and yields).[51] At the time of land reform, the Jin-Sui region, like other old liberated areas of North China, was no longer even “a land of small landlords,” but “a land of middle peasants.”
 
However, at the same time, more than 40% of rural households had insufficient land, with the average per household being less than 10 shang. In this respect, even though land ownership was not highly concentrated, the “land question” was nevertheless very real. In this situation, land reform could clearly not realize “equal land rights” by merely redistributing the small amount of surplus land held by landlords and rich peasants, and would have to encroach upon the interests of the middle peasant majority.[52]
 
At this point we should note that already in 1929, people within the Party had noticed that a major difficulty in following the Soviet path was the problem of land. The author of “Where is China headed?” predicted that because China did not have very large-scale landlords, the process of land revolution will involve “panic about the shortage of land.” If all land were to be equally distributed, this could “cause a proportion of the middle peasantry to lose some of its land, leading to significant dissatisfaction in the countryside.”[53] By comparison, “[resolving] the land question in Russia did not face this difficulty.”[54]
 
In reality, the moment the drama of “class struggle” was initiated in the old liberated areas of the Jin-Sui region, there was a severe shortage of landlords. This shortage of “landlords” was in reality a shortage of land. At this time, under the momentum of a political campaign, the discourse of “class struggle” greatly stimulated people’s political imagination in seeking out “class enemies,” and the ideal of “proceeding from the actual situation” in practice became “resolutely oppose landlords who pretend to be middle peasants.” As a result, all kinds of “old liberated area landlords” (including rent-collecting landlords and managerial landlords as well as disguised, bankrupt and downwardly mobile landlords, and landlords who had snuck into the Party) were quickly “uncovered.”[55] According to Ren Bishi’s report on land reform, “in the administrative village of Caijiaya alone, more than fifty middle peasant and prosperous middle peasant households (and even some poor peasant households) were mistakenly designated productive rich peasants or bankrupt landlords.”[56] Only when Mao Zedong personally intervened to rectify these deviations was this rapid expansion in the number of “class enemies” brought to a halt.
 
As for the harm middle peasants could face as a result of a land revolution, the author of “Where is China headed?” expressed deep concern. He wrote: “This is truly a very dangerous phenomenon, and may cause middle peasants to vacillate. However, middle peasants play the central role in the countryside both in terms of numbers and productivity—if they become a counterrevolutionary force, the revolution is bound to fail.”[57] During land reform in North China, “harming the middle peasants” was a problem that Mao Zedong guarded against and repeatedly warned about. In his speech at the Yangjiagou conference, he noted: “opposing “leftism” on the land question is primarily opposing a rash policy towards middle peasants—even if a single middle peasant household is attacked as a landlord, we must pay careful attention to rectifying this.” [58] 

However, the great disparity between rural realities in the old liberated areas of Northern China and revolutionary ideological discourse necessarily led to regular encroachment on the interests of middle peasants. In this complicated situation, the CCP eventually adapted to reality and adjusted its policies, distinguishing between old liberated areas, semi-old liberated areas, and newly liberated areas.[59] At the beginning of February 1948, Mao Zedong telegraphed Li Jingquan (secretary of the Jin-Sui sub-bureau) and Xi Zhongxun (secretary of the Northwest bureau) suggesting that land should no longer be redistributed in old liberated areas like Jin-Sui, with “adjustments and evening out” being sufficient. He clearly stated that in old liberated areas, “middle peasants are the majority of the rural population.”[60] The “statistical” data in table 3 above was only publicized in July 1948, clearly in order to “empirically” support Mao Zedong’s policy of land adjustment. However, it’s portrayal of society was probably not that far from reality. 
 
Many years later, while looking back on the land reform movement, Mao Zedong made the following profound observation: “China’s peasants will fight for every inch of land. During land reform, poor peasants always set their sights on prosperous middle peasants—they label prosperous middle peasants as rich peasants so as to be able to confiscate their surplus land.”[61] On the one hand, this observation points to how the “land question” inspires revolutionary energy, particularly among farming households with little or no land; on the other hand, it also clearly indicates the practical difficulties inherent in “resolving the land question.”
 
We can thus see that the complexity of the process of the Chinese revolution lies in the enormous discrepancy between abstract ideas and concrete reality, and the resulting continuous tension in the course of revolutionary practice. Initiating revolutionary action requires “first creating public opinion 首先造成舆论.” Clearly, “public opinion“ is not a passive description or objective reflection of social reality, but constitutes a historical force that can actively intervene. As a revolutionary article of faith, “resolving the land question” maintained a certain supra-empirical quality throughout the process of land reform, and was not something that could be falsified by partial experience. However, this did not mean that revolutionaries could simply maintain their revolutionary beliefs without any regard to reality. 

Unlike the question of “god,” the “land question” was in the final analysis a secular one, and as a result, its resolution could not disregard objective material conditions. In fact, revolutionary practice propelled by “public opinion” was continuously subject to the constraint of actual conditions, making it necessary for revolutionaries to constantly adjust their political plans and strategies of action so as fit reality as much as possible.[62] In the course of land reform in Northern China, the policies of distinguishing between three types of areas and of “resolutely protecting the middle peasants” embodied the practical rationality of Mao Zedong and the CCP leadership.[63] Of course, at the same time it is necessary to see that the ingenuity in making such distinctions was in the fact that it acknowledged the actual situation of the old liberated areas under the CCP’s control (i.e. that middle peasants constituted the majority of rural society), while at the same time maintaining the overall truth of revolutionary discourse on the “land question.”[64]
 
Through the twists and turns of land reform in Northern China, we can see that Chinese revolutionary practice was a complicated process full of tension, in which ideals and realities constrained one another. A profound understanding of the internal structure of the Chinese revolutionary process (including the contradictions and problems inherent in it) is precisely what “explaining antiquity” aims at. It requires us to transcend the opposition between “classics” and “history” that results from simply doubting antiquity, and to instead understand from a new height the historical implications of Chinese revolutionary practice—what I call the Dao of the Chinese revolution.
 
The doubters (or evidential scholars) seek to negate the classics by using history, with the result that “to rebel is not justified,” or even “revolution is a crime.”[65] The believers (or doctrinal scholars) are diametrically opposed, arguing that to rebel is justified, and revolution is no crime. In calling for explaining antiquity and seeking the Dao, I hope to open a new, independent path of research and space for reflection outside doubting and believing. The battle between doubting and believing is concentrated on the level of “principle,” whereas explaining focuses instead on the level of the “Dao.” In my view, the “principle” of revolution is at the level of “how things ought to have happened” 当然, whereas the 'Dao' of the revolution is at the level of “why things happened the way they did 所以然.” [66]

Unlike “principle,” the “Dao” is about the historical nature of the Chinese revolution, and does not necessarily involve political affirmation or negation of the legitimacy of the revolution. Thus, my use of the category of Dao is to be understood in a “post-revolutionary” sense. To the extent that “history”(including both the “classics” compiled by revolutionaries as well as the many historical realities excluded from it) does not only record facts but also conveys the Dao, then this “Dao” reflects a series of historical processes full of uncertainty. The work of “explaining antiquity” is to arduously work through the many processes scattered throughout “history” and to figure out why they occurred the way they did, thereby continuously enriching our historical knowledge.
 
This article has used the example of the “land question” to demonstrate the limitations of doubting antiquity, and to offer a defence of explaining antiquity and seeking the “Dao.” Here it is necessary to note that investigation of the Dao of the revolution should not be confined to the “land question,” but should follow the complicated structure of the revolutionary process itself and seek out further discursive-historical issues to explain. The practice of land reform in North China, for example, had far more historical content than just the “class struggle” revolving around the distribution of land as expressed in CCP ideology: it was a complex modern practice involving a series of important cultural, political, and economic projects like “turning hearts-and-minds” (the liberation of thought), “mass democracy,” and “leading production,” which I cannot explore here due to limitations of space.
 
Conclusion
　　
The target of doubting antiquity is the political mythology of the Chinese revolution, but it cannot dispel the historicity of the Chinese revolution itself. It is precisely the latter that leads us towards explaining antiquity and seeking the Dao. Developing the study of the Chinese revolution and overcoming the current “paradigmatic crisis” requires us to transcend a politicized form of doubting antiquity, and to proceed from an academic form of doubting to the next step – “explaining antiquity.” Having broken free from the restraints of orthodox dogmatism, the study of revolutionary history has experienced a tide of doubting antiquity; I believe that this tide will subside, and the discipline will move into a new era of “explaining antiquity”.
 
Negating or extolling—neither is as good as knowing. Let us move from doubting and believing antiquity to explaining it.
 
Notes 

[1]李放春,“释古”何为？论中国革命之经、史与道：以北方解放区土改运动为经验基础,”   开放时代/ Open Times, 2015 no. 6: 13-29. Thanks to Dayton Lekner, Li Fangchun, Li Zhiyu and David Ownby for their comments on earlier drafts of the translation, to the members of the Freiburg translation lab of the “Revisiting the Revolution” project directed by Timothy Cheek for discussion and feedback, and to Dayton Lekner and David Ownby for their comments on the introduction and their assistance throughout the process.

[2] See chapters 1 and 2 of Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo jianguo shi yanjiu 1 中华人民共和国建国史研究 1 [Research on the Early Years of the People’s Republic of China, vol. 1] ( Nanchang: Jiangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 2009).

[3] I’m setting aside the question of whether that would even be desirable.

[4] As Aminda Smith has recently argued, though in a very different way (see her contributions in positions: asia critique, volume 29, issue 4 (November 2021).

[5] The phrase “doubting antiquity” originates from the Tang dynasty historian Liu Zhiji’s 刘知几 Shitong, Waipian yigu di san 史通·外篇疑古第三. For a brief review of tides of doubting antiquity in the history of Chinese scholarship, see Li Xueqin 李学勤, “Tan ‘xingu, yigu he shigu’ “谈‘信古、疑古和释古’”[On “Believing, doubting and explaining antiquity”]|,” in  Yuandao vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1994), 303-310.

[6] Feng Youlan 冯友兰,  Zhongguo jinnian yanjiu shixue zhi xin qushi 中国近年研究史学之新趋势 [New Tendencies in Recent Historical Studies in China], originally in Shijie Ribai 1935 May 14th, reprinted in Sansongtang xueshu wenji 三松堂学术文集 [Hall of Three Pines] (Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe, 1985), 331-332. Feng’s three-school formulation corresponds to the Hegelian logic of thesis (believing antiquity), antithesis (doubting antiquity) and synthesis (explaining antiquity). See Feng Youlan, Zhongguo zhexue shi 中国哲学史 [A History of Chinese Philosophy] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1961), preface section 1. For an introduction to and exploration of the proposal to “explain antiquity” , see Xu Baogeng 徐葆耕, “Shigu yu Qinghua xuepai 释古与清华学派 [Explaining antiquity and the Qinghua School], in Qinghua daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban), 1995 no. 2, 1-10. In recent years, in the field of ancient history, Li Xueqin 李学勤 has responded to Feng Youlan’s proposal to “explain antiquity” by calling on scholars to “leave the era of doubting antiquity” (see Li Xueqin, Zouchu yigu shidai 走出疑古时代 [Leaving the Era of Doubting Antiquity (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1994), 1-19.  

[7] However, in contrast to the “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” logic in Feng’s schema, the “phases” in non-official research on revolutionary history in the post-Mao era begin with doubting and are followed believing and explaining. What I call the school of “believers” is to a large extent a political reaction to the tide of doubting antiquity.

[8] On the system of courses on “ideology and politics” in higher education and the development of policy on education in revolutionary history, see Ji Liping 姬丽萍 , “Xin Zhongguo chengli hou gaoxiao sixiang zhengzhi lilun kecheng tixi nei Zhongguo jindaishi jiaoyu de yanjin 新中国成立后高校思想政治理论课程体系内中国近现代史教育的演进 [The development of education on modern Chinese history within the system of ideological, political and theoretical courses in higher education following the establishment of the New China], Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, 2010 no. 11, 28-35. 

[9] Xiao Shu 笑蜀, Liu Wencai Zhenxiang 刘文彩真相 [The Truth about Liu Wencai] (Xi’an: Shanxi Shifan Daxue Chubanshe, 1999); Du Xing 杜兴 “Zhou Bapi” de 1947 “周扒皮”的1947 [“Zhou Bapi’s” 1947], Shidai jiaoyu (xianfeng guojia lishi), 2008 no. 15, 64-69; etc.   Zhou Bapi was a fictional character created by the author Gao Yubao 高玉宝, although he was based on a real person.

[10] On the popular reputation of “benevolent landowners, see Li Fangchun, “Lishi, mingyun yu fenhua de xinling: Shaanbei Jicun tugai de dazhong jiyi 历史、命运与分化的心灵：陕北骥村土改的大众记忆 [History, Fate, and Divided Souls: The Popular Memory of Land Reform in Ji village, northern Shaanxi] , MA Diss., Peking University, 2000, 31-34, 80-84; Li Fangchun, “Huangtugou tugai de lishi jiyi 黄土沟土改的历史记忆 [The historical memory of land reform in Huangtugou ], Ershiyi shiji, 2008 June, 50-59.
 
[11] For example, when I was conducting oral history interviews on land reform in Yangjiagou village (Mizhi County, Northern Shaanxi) near the end of the 1990s, I noticed that “bad cadres” were an extremely vivid element in villagers’ memories. For a while, I was very puzzled by this discovery from the “grassroots,” and it was only after I encountered many archival sources from base areas and liberated areas that I gradually came to understand its complicated political implications. For a preliminary study of the “bad cadre” question and its historical implications, see Li Fangchun, ““Dizhuwo” li de qingsuan fengbo: jian lun beifang tugai zhong de “minzhu” yu “huai ganbu” wenti “地主窝”里的清算风波：兼论北方土改中的“民主”与“坏干部”问题 [The storm of settling accounts in a “landlord hideout,” together with a discussion of the issues of “democracy” and “bad cadres” during land reform in Northern China, in Philip C.C. Huang 黄宗智 (ed.), Zhongguo xiangcun yanjiu 中国乡村研究 [Research on Rural China], vol. 6 (Fuzhou: Fujian Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 2008), 72-89.

[12] Translator’s note: this is a reference to the method advocated by Wang Guowei 王国维 for the study of the ancient past, which did not completely reject the textual tradition, but instead advocated studying it together with newly uncovered archaeological evidence.

[13] In 1980, Li Weihan suggested to Deng Xiaoping that “[China] needs to take a supplementary course in opposing feudal thinking.” Afterwards, in his report on “Reforming the Leadership Structure of the Party and the State” at the Politburo Expanded Conference of August 18, he specifically talked about the issue of “eliminating the remaining influence of feudalism.” See Yu Huanchun 余焕椿, “Li Weihan tongdingsitong jihu fan fengjian 李维汉痛定思痛疾呼反封建 [Li Weihan draws a lesson from bitter experience and urges opposition to feudalism], Yanhuang Chunqiu, 2003 no. 3, 1-5. The “new enlightenment” of the 1980s in Chinese intellectual circles can be seen as a further extension of this political appeal to “oppose feudalism.” One scholar has noted: “During the 1980s movement to liberate thought, Chinese intellectuals’ reflections on socialism where carried out under the slogan of “opposing feudalism,” and therefore avoided the difficulties of socialism in China and the entire issue of the ‘crisis of modernity.’” (see Wang Hui 汪晖, Qu zhengzhihua de zhengzhi: duan 20 shiji de zhongjie yu 90 niandai 去政治化的政治：短20世纪的终结与90年代 [Depoliticized Politics: The End of the Short 20th Century and the 1990s] (Beijing: Sanlian Shudian, 2008), 72. The “doubting antiquity” school’s reflections on and criticisms of the Chinese revolution are largely in the same intellectual vein  as the “new enlightenment” of the 1980s 沿着“新启蒙主义”的思想线路.

[14] For example, Zhang Jiafu 张稼夫, Gengshen yishi  庚申忆逝 [Recalling the past in 1980] (Taiyuan: Shanxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1984).

[15] See Zhang Youyi 章有义, “Ben shiji er-sanshi niandai woguo diquan fenpei de zai guji 本世纪二三十年代我国地权分配的再估计 [A new estimate of the distribution of land rights in China in the 1920s and 30s],” Zhongguo shehui jingji shi yanjiu, 1988 no. 2, 3-10;  Zhao Gang 赵冈,  “Dizhu jingji zhi zhiyi 地主经济制质疑 [Calling into question the landlord economic system],” Zhongguo shehui jingji shi yanjiu, 1989 no. 2, 53-56; Guo Dehong 郭德宏, “Jiu Zhongguo tudi zhanyou zhuangkuang jiqi fazhan qushi 旧中国土地占有状况及其发展趋势 [The situation of land ownership in old China and its direction of development],”  Zhongguo shehui kexue, 1989 no. 4, 199-212; Guo Dehong, Zhongguo jindai nongmin tudi wenti yanjiu 中国近现代农民土地问题研究 [Research on the peasantry and the land question in modern China] (Qingdao: Qingdao Chubanshe, 1993); Qin Hui 秦晖 and Su Wen 苏文, Tianyuanshi yu kuangxiangqu: Guanzhong moshi yu qianjindai shehui de zai renshi 田园诗与狂想曲：关中模式与前近代社会的再认识 [Pastorals and rhapsodies: the Guanzhong model and a new understanding of premodern societies] (Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 1996), 44-112; Zhao Gang, “Diquan fenpei zhi taihu moshi zai jiantao 地权分配之太湖模式再检讨 [Re-examining the Taihu model of land distribution],” Zhongguo nongshi, 2003 no. 1, 32-37; Huang Daoxuan 黄道炫, “1920-1940 niandai Zhongguo dongnan diqu de tudi zhanyou—jian tan dizhu, nongmin yu tudi geming 一九二〇至一九四〇年代中国东南地区的土地占 有——兼谈地主、农民与土地革命 [The ownership of land in southeast China in the 1940s, and a discussion of landlords, peasants, and the land revolution], Lishi yanjiu, 2005 no. 1, 34-53; Gao Wangling 高王凌, Zudian guanxi xinlun: dizhu, nongmin yu dizu 租佃关系新论：地主、农民和地租 [A new theory of land tenancy relations: landlords, peasants and land rent] (Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 2005); Qin Hui, “Guanyu chuantong zudianzhi ruogan wenti de shangque 关于传统租佃制若干问题的商榷 [A discussion of some issues about the tenancy system of traditional China],” Xueshu yuekan, 2006 September, 122-132; Zhao Gang, Zhongguo chuantong nongcun de diquan fenpei 中国传统农村的地权分配 [The distribution of land right in traditional rural China] (Beijing: Xinxing chubanshe, 2006), etc.

[16] Qin Hui and Su Wen, Tianyuanshi yu kuangxiangqu; Qin Hui, “Guanyu chuantong zudianzhi ruogan wenti de shangque.”  Translator’s note: “evidential scholarship” was a rigorously empirical approach to the study of ancient texts that developed during the Qing dynasty.

[17] In addition to the issue of evidential research, “doubters” also are also enthusiastic about identifying the political motives of the CCP in carrying out land reform, the constructed elements [i.e. not spontaneously originating from the masses] in its process, and its negative consequences. See Zhang Ming 张鸣, “Huabei diqu tudigaige yundong de yunzuo (1946-1949) 华北地区土地改革运动的运作（1946—1949）[The operation of the land reform movement in Norther China (1946-1949),” Ershiyi shiji, 2003 april, 32-41; Gao Wangling and Liu Yang 刘洋载, “Tugai de jiduanhua 土改的极端化 [The radicalization of land reform],” Ershiyi shiji, 2009 February, 36-47; etc.

[18] Debates and critiques concerning the “land question” and “land reform” did not originate with the “doubters” referred to in this article but go back much further. Among the earlier Chinese scholars who wrote critically of CCP land reform are Dong Shijin 董时进 and Jin Yihong 金一鸿. See: Lun Gongchandang de tudigaige 论共产党的土地改革 [On CCP land reform] (Hong Kong: Xianggang ziyou chubanshe, 1951); Jin Yihong, Zhonggong tugai yu Zhongguo tudi wenti 中共土改与中国土地问题 [CCP land reform and the land problem in China] (Hong Kong: Xianggang ziyou chubanshe, 1952); Jin Yihong, Zhonggong tudi gaige zonglun 中共土地改革总论 [An overview of CCP land reform] (Hong Kong: Xianggang xinshiji chubanshe, 1953); etc.

[19] Translator’s note: this is a reference to Gu Jiegang’s view that Chinese ancient history is a collection of myths fabricated at various points later in time. 

[20] Lata daoren 邋遢道人（Yang Songlin 杨松林, “Meiyou tudi gaige jiu meiyou Zhongguo de xiandaihua没有土地改革就没有中国的现代化 [Without land reform, there would be no Chinese modernization], Renwen yu shehui wang, 2009 September 13th.

[21]Qin Hui, “Guanyu chuantong zudianzhi tuogan wenti de shangque.” Recently, Hu Yingze 胡英泽 has also used the method of Gini coefficients to analyze the distribution of land in rural Shanxi, Hebei and Shandong, and came to a different conclusion than Qin Hui. His research shows that  although land ownership was not highly concentrated in these provinces, the Gini coefficient of land ownership was above 0.5, meaning distribution was highly unequal. See Hu Yingze, “Jindai Huabei xiangcun diquan fenpei zai yanjiu 近代华北乡村地权分配再研究 [Revisiting the distribution of land in rural Northern China in modern times],” Lishi yanjiu, 2013, no. 4, 117-136. For another recent discussion of the distribution of land in Northern China, see Li Jinzheng 李金铮, “Xiangdui fensan yu jiao wei jizhong: cong Jizhong Dingxian kan jindai Huabei pingyuan xiangcun tudi fenpei guanxi de benxiang 相对分散与较为集中: 从冀中定县看近代华北平原乡村土地分配关系的本相 [Relatively dispersed and relatively concentrated: considering the distribution of land in the rural North China plains in modern times through the case of Ding county in central Hebei],” Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu, 2012, no. 3, 16-28.

[22] Yang Kuisong 杨奎松, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo jianguo shi yanjiu 中华人民共和国建国史研究 [Research on the early years of the People’s Republic of China] (Nanchang: Jiangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 2014 [2009]). These volumes, which aim to “reveal how things really happened with the use of declassified archives”  以“解密历史档案，还原真实 场景” have, at the time of writing, gone through six printings since they were first published in 2009.

[23] Yang Kuisong, Zhonghua Renmin Gonghe guo jianguo shi yanjiu, 99-101. In his most recent article, Yang has restated his point of view: “Although the members of the CCP Centre were located in the countryside, they could nevertheless easily become insulated from the villages, and especially from the peasantry… They primarily relied on reports from the lower levels and on people dispatched to investigate particular villages. The moment these reports and investigations incorporated some kind of bias, it was difficult for the Party Centre’s judgements on the entire rural situation to remain accurate. (See Yang Kuisong, “Zhanhou chuqi Zhonggong Zhongyang tudi zhengce de biandong ji yuanyin: zhaozhong yu wenxian dang’an de jiedu 战后初期中共中央土地政策的变动及 原因：着重于文献档案的解读 [Changes in the Land Policies of the CCP Centre in the Early Post-war Period and Its Causes – An Analysis Based on Documentary Evidence],” Kaifang shidai, 2014 no. 5, 89.

[24] Yang Kuisong, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo jianguo shi yanjiu, 103.

[25] Ibid., 110.

[26] The estimate that landlords and rich peasants, constituting less than 10% of the population, owned 70-80% of the land actually already appeared in the CCP Centre’s “Resolution on Publicizing the Outline Land Law,” and was just copied from there in “The Current Situation and Our Tasks Ahead.” 

[27] Mao Zedong, “An Analysis of the Various Classes among the Chinese Peasantry and Their Attitudes toward the Revolution (January 1926,” in Stuart R. Schram (ed.), Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-1949, vol. 2 (Armonk, NY.: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), 304. Mao’s estimate about small landlords seems to be the number of households rather than individuals.

[28] “Zhonggong di liu ci quanguo daibiao da hui guanyu tudi wenti jueyi an 中共第六次全国代表大会关于土地问题决议案 [Resolution of the Sixth CCP Congress on the Land Question”], July 1928, in Chen Hansheng 陈翰笙 et al. (eds.), Jiefang qian de Zhongguo nongcun 解放前的中国农村 [Rural China before Liberation] vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo zhanwang chubanshe, 1985), 20. The following year, the Party restated this view in its resolution accepting the Comintern’s directive on the peasant question (“Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu jieshou guoji duiyu nongmin wenti zhi zhishi de jueyi 中共中央关于接受国际对于农民问题之指示的决议 [CCP Centre’s resolution on accepting the Comintern’s directive on the peasant question],” 1929 September, in ibid., 40. In his later years, Sun Yat-sen also expressed a similar view. In 1924, he compared China’s landlords with those of Russia in his lecture at the graduation of the first class of the Peasant Movement Training Institute. On the one hand, he claimed that China had no big landlords, only small landlords and ordinary peasants, and was therefore more equal that Russia; on the other hand, he pointed out that China’s small landlord were even more exacting towards the peasants that Russia’s big landlords, and so China’s peasants suffered more than Russian serfs had. See Sun Yat-sen, “Zai nongmin yundong jiangxisuo di yi jie biyeli de yanshuo 在农民运动讲习所第一届毕业礼的演说[Lecture at the graduation of the first class of the Peasant Movement Training Institute],” 1924.8.21, in Sun Zhongshan xuanji 孙中山选集 [Selected works of Sun Yat-sen] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), 936.

[29] Cai Hesen 蔡和森 “Zai dang de di liu ci daibiao dahui shang taolun nongmin tudi wenti de fayan 在党的第六次代表大会上讨论农民土地问题时的发言 [Speech on the peasant and land question at the Sixth Party Congress],” 1928.7.2, in Cai Hesen wenji 蔡和森文集 [Selected works of Cai Hesen] vol. 2 (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 2013), 955.

[30] Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China  (New York: Grove Press, 1968), 101, 445.

[31] Edgar Snow,  “An Interview with Wang Kuan-lan, July 30, 1936,” in Edgar Snow, Random Notes on Red China, 1936-1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971[1957]),  34-41.

[32] Ibid., 37.

[33]According to the statistics released in 1937 by the Land Committee of the Nanjing Government, 45% of cultivated land in Jiangxi Province was cultivated by tenants. The rate of tenancy in other southern provinces like Hunan, Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangsu was also between 40 and 50 percent. See Li Wenhai 李文海 (chief ed.), Minguo shiqi shehui diaocha congbian (er bian), xiangcun jingji juan (xia) 民国时期社会调查丛编（二编）, 乡村经济卷（下）[Social investigations in Republican China, no. 2: rural economics, vol. 2] (Fuzhou: Fujian jiaoyu chubanshe, 2009), 348.

[34] The estimates on the rent collected are exaggerated and not realistic (perhaps Snow recorded them incorrectly). According to Zhang Wentian’s investigations, in the Mizhi area of Shaanxi, the average yield was about 5 dou of coarse grain per shang of land. In good years, this could reach 7-8 dou or more, and in lean years could fall below 3-4 dou. In the 1930s, the rate of rent in this area was about 3 dou, which rose in good years and dropped in lean years. See Zhang Wentian, “Mizhi xian Yangjiagou diaocha 米脂县杨家沟调查 [Investigation of Yangjiagou village, Mizhi county], in Zhang Wentian xuanji zhuanji zu (eds.), Zhang Wentian Jin Shaan diaocha wenji 张闻天晋陕调查文集 [Collection of Zhang Wentian’s investigations in Shanxi and Shaanxi] (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1994), 194-203, 260-161.

[35] Edgar Snow, “An Interview with Wang Kuan-lan （July 30, 1936）, ” in Edgar Snow, Random Notes on Red China, 1936-1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971[1957]), 37.  

[36] On the landlord economy of the Mizhi area of northern Shaanxi and its decline under the rule of the CCP, see Zhang Wentian, “Mizhi xian Yangjiagou diaocha 米脂县杨家沟调查 (Investigation of Yangjiagou, Mizhi County), in Zhang Wentian xuanji zhuanji zu (eds.), Zhang Wentian Jin Shaan diaocha wenji;  Joseph Esherick,  “Revolution in a Feudal Fortress: Yangjiagou, Mizhi County, Shaanxi, 1937-1948,” Modern China, Vol. 24, No. 4 (1998), 339-377; Li Fangchun, ““Dizhuwo” li de qingsuan fengbo.” On the “ecological” differences between the Yanshu area (where the “Yan’an model originated) and northern Shaanxi, see Pauline Keating, “The Ecological Origins of the Yan’an Way,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 32 (1994), 123-153; Pauline Keating, Two Revolutions: Village Reconstruction and the Cooperative Movement in Northwest China, 1934-45 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). 

[37] Peng Zhen 彭真 “Jin-Cha-Ji bianqu ge xiang juti zhengce ji dang de jianshe jingyan晋察冀边区各项具体政策及党的建设经验 [Specific Policies in the Jin-Cha-Ji border region and the Party’s experience in construction],” Peng Zhen wenxuan 彭真文选 [Selected works of Peng Zhen] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1991), 45-46.

[38] Han Wen 韦文 “Jin xibei de tudi wenti 晋西北的土地问题 [The land question in northwest Shanxi],” originally in Jiefang Ribao, 1942.4.20, reprinted in Jin-Sui bianqu caizheng jingji shi ziliao xuanbian (nongye bian) 晋绥边区财政经济史资料选编（农业编）[Selected materials on the financial and economic history of the Jin-Sui border region (volume on agriculture)] (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1986), 62.

[39] Zhang Wentian, “Jin xibei Xing xian er qu shisi cun de tudi wenti yanjiu (baogao dagang) 晋西北兴县二区十四个村的土地问题研究（报告大纲）[Research on the land question in fourteen villages of the second district of Xing county, northwest Shanxi (report draft)], 1942.7.27, in Zhang Wentian xuanji zhuanji zu (eds.), Zhang Wentian Jin Shaan diaocha wenji, 96.

[40] Chen Han-Seng, The Chinese Peasant (Bombay: G. Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1945)

[41] According to the statistics in the report released by the Central Agricultural Experimentation Office of the Nationalist Government in December 1937, the proportion of tenants in the provinces of Hebei and Shandong between 1931 and 1936 was about 12% on average. The proportion was slightly higher in Henan and Shanxi, at 22% and 17% respectively. The highest proportion was in Sichuan and Guangdong, at more than 50%. This data is cited in Zhang Youyi 章有义 (ed.), Zhongguo jindai nongye shi ziliao 中国近代农业史资料 [Material on the history of agriculture in modern China] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1957), 728.

[42] Zhonggong Jin-Sui fenju diaocha yanjiu shi,  “Nongcun tudi ji jieji bianhua cailiao 农村土地及阶级变化材料 [Material on changes in rural land [ownership] and classes],” 1946.6, Shanxi Provincial Archives.

[43] Zhonggong Jin-Sui fenju diaocha yanjiu shi “Zenyang huafen nongcun jieji chengfen 怎样划分农村阶级成份 [How to Designate Rural Class Status],” 1946.9, in Jin-Sui bianqu caizheng jingji shi ziliao xuanbian, 335. The drafter of this document, Duan Yun 段云, had assisted Zhang Wentian in investigating the land situation in Xing county, northwest Shaanxi. In the summer of 1946, Duan Yun, who was then the director of the Jin-Sui sub-bureau’s investigation and research office, led a research team to carry out an in-depth investigation of northwest Shaanxi and produced a corresponding report, titled “Investigation report on the changes in land [ownership] and class in 20 villages across 9 counties of old areas in Jin-Sui.” “How to designated rural class status” was based on this investigation.

[44] See Zeng Yanxiu曾彦修, “Kang Sheng zai tugai zhong ba Makesi zhuyi shaole 康生在土改中把马克思主义烧了 [In the process of land reform, Kang Sheng incinerated Marxism],” in Yanhuang Chunqiu, 2003 no. 7, 34-38.

[45] For example, in a lecture at Peking University a few years ago, Qin Hui suggested that the reason the CCP carried out violent land reform was to force peasants to commit to the Party by participating in violence 投名状. See Qin Hui, “Zhonggong tugai—weile shenme? 中共土改—为了什么? [What was the purpose of CCP land reform?],” Wenshi cankao, 2012 no. 8, 68-71.

[46] The discursive origins and development of the “land question” are worthy of separate investigation, but that is outside the scope of this article.

[47] Li Fangchun, “Huabei nanti yu tugai “jieji douzheng”: ping Hu Sushan de tongzhi jieji lun  华北难题与土改“阶级斗争”：评胡素珊的统治阶级论 [The North China problem and “class struggle” in land reform: a critique of Susan Pepper’s ruling class theory],” Jindai shi yanjiu, 2013 no. 2, 146-59. As early as the 1970s, Suzanne Pepper began with this empirical puzzle and investigated the implications and political complexities of “class struggle” during land reform in northern China. See Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 229-330. 

[48] Mao Zedong, “Du Sulian zhengzhi jingji xue jiaokeshu de tanhua (jiexuan) 读苏联政治经济学教科书的谈话（节选）[A critique of Soviet economics] , 1959 December – 1960 February, in Mao Zedong wenji 毛泽东文集 [Collected works of Mao Zedong] vol. 8 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999), 132.

[49] The production of revolutionary public opinion no doubt brings to the fore the agency of historical actors. However, it is important not to confuse “[the manufacturing of] public opinion” with the idea of a stratagem or plot 谋略. In my view, “public opinion” is not something that the political stratagem of a revolutionary leader can produce, but is better seen as the product of the basic discursive tendencies of a particular historical period.

[50] Liang Shuming once noted: “The tendency of Chinese people towards revolution emerges from their pursuit of truth. The production of revolutionary force thus depends entirely on committed and zealous agitation by intellectuals in favour of a particular belief. It is not economically determined, and has a moral quality to it. The relevance of this for the nature of the Chinese revolution is great.” (Liang Shuming quanji 梁漱溟全集 [Collected Works of Liang Shuming], vol. 5 (Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1992), 82. In recent years, some historians have noted that the Chinese revolution “was the product of modern Chinese intellectuals’ attempt to save China from extinction. The leading force of revolution was constituted by intellectuals throughout, and not by a particular class” (Wang Qisheng王奇生, “Gaoshan gun shi: 20 shiji Zhongguo geming de lianxu yu tijin 高山滚石：20世纪中国革命的连续与递进 [Rolling a stone off a high mountain: the continuities and progressions of China’s twentieth century revolutions],” Huazhong Shifan Daxue xuebao, 2013 no. 5, 97. 

[51] The agricultural land of northwest Shaanxi can roughly be divided into irrigated land, plains, and mountainous land, and each type can further be divided into three grades depending on the quality of the soil. See Zhang Wentian, ““Jin xibei Xing xian er qu shisi cun de tudi wenti yanjiu (baogao dagang),” as well as Zhang Wentian, “Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu Shenfu xian zhishu xiang ba ge ziran cun de diaocha 陕甘宁边区神府县直属乡八个自然村的调查 [Investigation of eight natural villages in districts of Shenfu county in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region], section 9, in Zhang Wentian Jin-Shaan diaocha wenji, 12-13.

[52] For discussions of the middle peasant question during land reform in northern China, see Susan Pepper, China’s Civil War, 258-59; Li Fangchun, “Beifang tugai zhong de “fanshen” yu “shengchan”: Zhongguo gemimng xiandaixing de yi ge huayu—lishi maodun sukao 北方土改中的“翻身”与“生产”：中国革命现代性的一个话语—历史矛盾溯考 [“Fanshen” and “production” in the course of land reform in northern China: tracing a discursive-historical contradiction in Chinese revolutionary modernity],” Zhongguo xiangcun yanjiu vol. 3 (Beijing: Shehui kexue chubanshe, 2005), 231-292; Huang Daoxuan 黄道炫, “Mengyou yihuo qianzai duishou?: Laoqu tugai zhong de zhongnong 盟友抑或潜在对手？：老区土改中的中农  [Allies or potential adversaries?: Middle peasants in the context of land reform in old [liberated] areas],” Nanjing Daxue xuebao, 2007 no. 5, 82-96. See also David S.G. Goodman, Social and Political Change in Revolutionary China:  The Taihang Base Area in the War of Resistance to Japan, 1937–1945 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); Yue Qianhou 岳谦厚 and Zhang Wenjun 张文俊, “Jin xibei kangri genjudi de “zhongnong jingji” 晋西北抗日根据地的“中农经济” [The “middle peasant economy” of the anti-Japanese resistance base areas in northwest Shanxi],” Jinyang xuekan, 2010 no. 6, 97-107.

[53] See Xiang You 向友, “Zhongguo dao nali qu? 中国到哪里去？[Where is China headed?],” originally in Buershiweike vol. 2, nos. 4-5, reprinted in Qu Qiubai wenji (zhengzhi lilun bian) 瞿秋白文集（政治理论编 ）[Collected works of Qu Qiubai (section on political theory)], vol. 5, appendix (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2013), 710.

[54] Ibid., 711.

[55] Li Fangchun, “Class, Power and the Contradictions of Chinese Revolutionary Modernity: Interpreting Land Reform in Northern China, 1946-48,” PhD diss.,  University of California, Los Angeles (2008), 39-88.

[56] Ren Bishi 任弼时, “Tudi gaige zhong de ji ge wenti 土地改革中的几个问题 [Some issues in land reform],” 1948.1.12, in Zhongyang dang’anguan (ed.),  Jiefang zhanzheng shiqi tudi gaige wenjian xuanbian 解放战争时期土地改革文件选编 [Selected land reform documents from the period of the war of liberation]” (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao chubanshe, 1981), 111. 

[57] Xiang You, “Zhongguo dao nali qu?,” 716.

[58] Mao Zedong “Zai Yangjiagou Zhonggong Zhongyang kuoda huiyi shang de jianghua 在杨家沟中共中央扩大会议上的讲话 [Speech at the Yangjiagou expanded CCP centre meeting],” 1947.12.25, in Mao Zedong wenji 毛泽东文集 [Collected works of Mao Zedong],” vol. 4 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999), 331.

[59] In his instructions to the leaders responsible for each liberated area, Mao emphasized: “the situation in these three kinds of areas differs, and so the contents and steps of implementing the land law must also differ.” See Mao Zedong, “Laoqu ban laoqu shixing tudi fa ying yousuo butong 老区半老区实行土地法应有所不同 [Implementing the land law in old areas and semi-old areas should be done somewhat differently],” 1948.2.6, in Mao Zedong wenji, vol. 5, 50.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Mao Zedong, “Du Sulian zhengzhi jingji xue jiaoke shu,” 105.

[62] Tang Tsou has argued the following: “In contrast to the Russian Revolution…the Chinese Revolution shows us how, both before and after 1949, Chinese Communist leaders made widely different choices, shifted their strategies and tactics numerous times, adopted at times extremely radical and very moderate programs, and all the while built up a new set of political and military organizations and institutions. This revolution furnished much for social scientists to ponder” ( “Interpreting the Revolution in China: Macrohistory and Micromechanisms,” Modern China 26, no. 2 (2000), 210-11.

[63] In his instructions to rein in “leftism,” on the topic of “resolutely protecting middle peasants,” Mao added in brackets that “this policy is set in stone” [确定不疑]. See Mao Zedong, “Zai tudi gaige zhong zhuyi jiuzheng “zuo” qing cuowu 在土地 改革中注意纠正“左”倾错误 [Pay attention to reining in “leftist” mistakes in the course of land reform],” 1947.11.29, in Mao Zedong wenji vol. 4, 332.

[64] Although in directing land reform in old areas, Mao made major adjustments in his evaluation of the situation of rural classes, with respect to new areas, he maintained his earlier judgment: “in rural areas under the control of the KMT, poor peasants, hired hands and other peasants with little or no land make up about 70% of the population, middle peasants make up about 20%, and landlords, rich peasants and other exploiters make up about 10%. See Mao Zedong, “Xin jiefang qu tugai douzheng celüe 新解放区土改斗争策略 [Strategy for the land reform struggle in newly liberated areas],” 1948.1.22, in Mao Zedong wenji vol. 5, 36.

[65]  Translator’s footnote: this is a play on the Red Guard slogan that “revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified 革命无罪，造反有理.”

[66] I have borrowed this distinction [between “当然” and “所以然”] from the Qing era scholar Zhang Xuecheng 章学诚 (see Zhang Xuecheng, Wenshi tongyi (yuan dao shang pian 文史通义（原道上篇）[], (Shanghai: Shiji chuban jituan, 2008), 34. However, unlike Zhang’s conception, what I call “Dao” is not some kind of a priori truth, but is instead no more than a convenient general term for a series of partial empirical investigations.