Correcting Excesses in the CCP’s Land Reform: The “Guo County Experience”

Abstract The adjustment of class status, as a key component of correcting excesses in land reform, holds a significant position in the history of the Chinese Communist Party’s ( CCP ) land reform movement. During a critical period that would determine the fate of China, the ability to correctly revise class designations and unite the broadest segments of the population had a direct impact on the overall success of land reform and the future of the CCP ’s revolution. From the end of 1947 to the first half of 1948, the Central Committee of the CCP and various liberated areas made substantial efforts to address this issue. Among them, Guo County in the Jin-Sui Border Region, through a process of ideological mobilization followed by the division of land and issuance of land certificates, conducted a thorough review of class statuses. This process corrected errors in the previous class categorization and ensured appropriate restitution of benefits, ultimately receiving full approval from Mao Zedong, the highest leader of the CCP . In fact, it was through the successful implementation of the “Guo County Experience” that the CCP curbed the leftist tendencies that had emerged during the land reform process and strengthened the state’s effective control over the society at the rural grassroots level.