The Peasant Movement in HunanThe Peasant Movement in Hunan

The Peasant Movement in Hunan Author(s): Yokoyama Suguru Reviewed work(s): Source: Modern China, Vol. 1, No. 2, The Rural Revolution. Part I (Apr., 1975), pp. 204-238 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/189041 . Accessed: 21/11/2011 20:13 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern China. http://www.jstor.org The Peasant Movement in Hunan YOKOYAMA SUGURU (S. YOKOYAMA) Hiroshima University The peasant movement in Hunan during 1926-1927 is well known by scholars interested in modem China; it has been described in detail in Mao Tse-tung's famous article, "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (1965: 23-59).1 Scholarly works on the subject, however, are few, although many works concerning the peasant movement in Kwangtung are available. This article is an attempt to study some aspects of the movement such as its background and origin and the peasants' political and economic demands- matters to which Mao's Report paid little attention. I will be concerned mainly with two elements of the peasant movement in Hunan: the peasants' tendency to be spontaneous, and the relationship between this tendency and the policy of the prevailing political power toward the peasants. In Hunan, the peasant association movement, a modern type of peasant movement, started in 1923 under the leadership of a few Communists and rapidly spread over the province after the middle of 1926, when the. National Revolutionary Army occupied the province. By July 1927 membership in the peasant associations in Hunan amounted to over 4,500,000, about one-half the total membership of all the peasant associations in MODERN CHINA, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1975 ? 1975 Sage Publications, Inc. /2041 Yokoyama / PEASANTMO VEMENT IN HUNAN [2051 China (Renmin Publishing House, 1953: 18). Peasant struggles in Hunan were more violent and their demands more radical than those of any other region. How could the Hunan peasant movement develop so rapidly? It is not easy to answer this question completely because there are insufficient materials on the subject. Two major factors, however, were that rebellious forces developed spontaneously within the rural setting, and that the revolutionary political powers, that is, both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT), helped the peasants' uprising. The political powers in the 1920s, the CCP and KMT, both proposed to release the poor peasantry from their miserable circumstances. Alliance between these two-the peasants and the political power aiming consciously at revolutionary change of the regime-was a principal element in bringing about the peasant movement and the rural revolution of the 1920s in China. Such an alliance, however, was more easily discussed than accomplished. Three peasant programs were put forward: that of the peasant association and those proposed by the KMT and the CCP respectively, the latter based on the direction of the Comintern. These programs, although differing in various respects, had many features in common. Thus, the peasant movement during the period of the National Revolution followed the sometimes divergent and sometimes blending aims of these three elements and formed its own unique historical characteristics. BACKGROUND-THE CONDITION OF THE PEA SANTR YINHUNAN The revolution of 1911 brought no change at all to the grievous conditions of the peasantry. After the birth of the Republic of China, and particularly after the death of Yuan Shi-kai in 1916, China suffered from incessant internal wars between rival military cliques, and unrestrained requisitions and corvee, insecurity, and pillage were visited upon the peasants. Moreover, economic invasion by foreign capitalists, which [2061 MODERN CHINA / APRIL 1975 increased day by day after the First World War, struck a serious blow to the rural economy. For all these reasons the peasants' circumstances became increasingly distressed. Though we have no scholarly survey on the rural conditions in Hunan at this time, we can gain an understanding of the general conditions from some available sources. Mao Tse-tung stated in his Report (1965: 32) that "according to the survey of Changsha County, the poor peasants comprise 70 per cent, the middle peasants 20 per cent, and the landlords and rich peasants 10 per cent of the population in the rural areas." Mao's term "poor peasants" meant those lacking cash and grain and supporting themselves by extra employment or borrowing; "middle peasants" meant those who had no surplus cash or grain, but who could eke out a living without borrowing; and "rich peasants" meant those having cash and grain surpluses. Another report (Chen J., 1927: 77) on the central area of Hunan classified the peasants differently, stating that hired peasants constituted nearly 30%o, tenants nearly 60%o, and independent peasants nearly 20%o of the total peasantry. All of the "hired peasants," "tenant peasants," and a greater part of the "independent peasants" of this report were classified in Mao's Report as "poor peasants," and they constituted a large majority of the peasantry in Hunan. By looking closely at the resolution concerning the political and economic demands of the peasantry which was adopted at the First Peasant Congress of Hunan Province held in December 1926 (Renmin Publishing House, 1953: 332-280), we can discem the problems the poor peasants faced. Ownership of the land was concentrated in the hands of a few rich families, who appropriated the major portion of the crops. Rents in Hunan commonly exceeded half the harvest at a fixed or proportionate rate. They were collected in kind, the peasants sometimes having to pay 60-70%o of a normal harvest. In a year of poor harvest, they had to pay 70-90o of the crop. In addition to the regular rents, the tenant peasants ordinarily had to give landowners a series of customary or seasonal gifts such as ducks, hens, grain, or cash, and had to fulfill corvee obligations. There was also a kind of "rent deposit" (yagui or yajin), which usually Yokoyama /PEASANTMO VEMENTIN HUNAN [2071 amounted to double the annual rent and was paid in currency. Such deposits did not accrue interest, and tenants who could not fulfill their obligations lost their deposits. One report (Chen J., 1927: 82) estimated that the real income of the tenant peasants might be about 20o of the harvest after expenses for fertilizer and farm implements were taken into account. Excessive taxation was another source of distress to the peasants. The regular amount of land tax was not much, but the surtaxes (iuan), which were extracted by the warlords or rural authorities in the name of improving education, self-defense forces, railway construction, and so on were very heavy, amounting to more than double the regular land tax. Both of these taxes had to be paid in currency. A survey taken in 1934 reported that 52% of the peasants in Hunan were in debt (Amano, 1937: 226) and that 49% had borrowed grain (Amano, 1937: 249), for which the interest rate was very high-20 to 40%o a year. According to a 1937 income survey (Amano, 1937: 207) involving 288,830 families living in Hunan, 35% of these families could not cover expenses. They had to make ends meet by borrowing cash or grain from the rich families. The "Resolution on Restraint of Usury" (Renmin Publishing House, 1953: 343) adopted by the Peasant Congress stated that the ordinary rate of interest on debts was 10Wo per month, but in some districts it was as high as 30%o per month. As a result, many of the poor peasants were unable to escape economic bondage. Under these conditions, the long-standing antagonism be- tween the traditional ruling class and the poor peasants in Hunan intensified, and the social prerequisites for revolution matured. A poor harvest brought on by a natural calamity has often been followed by the outbreak of peasant defiance against their oppressors. The countryside in Hunan suffered heavy damage from floods in 1922, 1923, and 1924 and experienced a drought in 1925. Of these disasters, the floods in 1924 were the most severe. More than 30 counties (xian) were badly devastated. In addition, a heavy amount of grain was consumed by about a hundred thousand soldiers who moved across the [2081 MODERN CHINA / APRIL 1975 Hunan border from Szechwan and stayed for seven months. Thus a serious shortage of food resulted. The price of rice jumped staggeringly. In normal times the price of rice was comparatively cheap because Hunan was a productive area for rice; even in years of poor harvest it cost 100 wen per sheng. However, in June 1925 it rose to 300-500 wen per sheng. Thus the poor peasants were caught between scant harvests and the spiraling cost of food. Famine was widespread. The peasants were driven to eating roots and sprouts of grass or trees, and large numbers of them starved to death. Many joined up with bandits or with warlords' forces. Others resorted to rice riots. A newspaper reported on the famine on June 2, 1925, to the effect that peasants had attacked rice granaries in Xiangtan, Liling Hengyang, and Hengshan, and that they had forced local rich families to give them food in Xiangtan, Xinhua, and Xiangyin. In Taoyuan some peasants had sold their children (Zhang, 1957: 632-633). In the early summer of 1925, a group of desperate peasants began to attack rich families and the local government. A huge peasant movement began to spread through the Hunan country- side. Chesneaux (1973: 153) commented that the Chinese peas- ants in the early twentieth century "remained influenced by the backward ideology of primitive struggle; their political horizons remained geographically limited: they were still spontaneously attached to petit-bourgeois private ownership, and they tended, when left to themselves, to revolt only against abuses and injustice rather than against the social system as a whole." Generally speaking, the peasants in Hunan were not an exception. Their movement, however, began to change its character in the 1920s. A kind of "modern" social movement in which premodern and modem elements are combined has been common in the underdeveloped countries in the twentieth century. This type of peasant movement plays an important role in national bour- geois-democratic revolution: the revolutionary political forces are closely concerned with the peasants' spontaneous demands and strive to organize the peasants under a suitable policy. In Yokoyvana / PEASANVTMIO VEAMENT IN HUNAN /209/ China, such new peasant movements developed suLccessfuLlly during the time of the War of Resistance against Japan and the People's Liberation War. The peasant movement in HUI1an in 1926-1927 can be regarded as a prototype of the modern revolutionary peasant movement in China. It included elements of the new and the old style of peasant movements joined together under the CCP and KMT, whose leadership lent the movement a specific national aspect. Some Chinese Communists tend to attribute the successful development of the peasant movement to proper instructions from the Party's leaders. While we certainly should not belittle the important role of the CCP, it would be equally wrong to ignore the spontaneous upsurge of the peasantry. When we investigate in detail the various positions concerning peasant problems which were adopted by the CCP and KMT, we cannot fail to recognize the fact that the various demands and activities initiated by the peasants exerted much influence on those solutions. THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN PEASANT MO VEMENTIN HUNAN Three attempts to launch a modern peasant movement in Hunan preceded the 1926-1927 movement. The first was that of the Yuebei Peasants and Workers Association. This move- ment began in a mountainous district called Baiguo in Hengshan county and spread to two nearby counties, Xiangxiang and Hengyang. Early in 1923, the Provincial Hunan CCP sent Liu Dong-xuan and Xie Huai-de, both workers of Shuikaoshan lead mine, to Baiguo, their native village, to organize the peasantry. They succeeded in organizing many peasant groups, working secretly for half a year, and they called the Congress of the Yuebei Peasants and Workers Association on September 16, 1923 (Hunan shengzhi bianji weiyuanhui, 1959: 458). All of the members of the Association were peasants, though the name of the organization included the word "workers" in it in order to show the desire to ally with the workers in the Shuikaoshan lead mine. According to one report (Deng, 1924: 208-209), [2101 MODERN CHINA /APRIL 1975 about ten thousand peasants attended the Congress. They adopted resolutions on improvement of peasant life, on the attitude toward the government, and on improvement of the village woman's life. They also elected seven men to an executive committee, appointing Liu as chairman and Xie as vice-chairman. The Manifesto adopted by the Congress stated that the peasants were in dire straits, that they had no fights at all, and that all of their problems arose from economic aggression of foreigners, pillage by warlords, oppression, and the civil war. "Do not buy foreign goods," the Manifesto declared, "Let us overthrow the foreigners and their tools-the warlords! Hurrah for independence of the Chinese Republic! Hurray for the alliance of the peasantry!" The anti-imperialist element was clearly introduced by the Communists. Although membership in the Yuebei Peasants and Workers Association was supposedly limited to hired peasants, tenant peasants, and independent peasants, active sympathizers who were not peasants were also allowed to belong. The Association established a centralized administrative system, electing a representative from every ten as well as every hundred members, and also from respective districts (qu). It was obvious that this Association was fundamentally different from the primitive and spontaneous peasant organizations in traditional China because it had a clear program, regular membership, and modem rules of organization. After the Congress, the Associa- tion held a series of public lectures in a number of places, explaining to the peasants that their unbearable distress was brought about by ill treatment and oppression by big landlords and local tyrants. The speakers were trying to raise the class consciousness of their peasant audiences. The Association soon grew to over a hundred thousand members. Baiguo district, previously dominated by Zhao Heng-ti, a warlord, was currently occupied by Zhao's rival, Tan Yan-kai. Tan did not interfere with the peasant movement because of political considerations. This factor had a positive influence on the expansion of the movement. As noted earlier, 1922 and 1923 were hard years for the peasants. The price of rice rose relentlessly. To accommodate Yokoyama /PEASANTMO VEMENTIN HUNAN [2111 the demands of the peasantry, the Association undertook a campaign called the "Relief Struggle," which aimed at lowering the price of rice and prohibiting the export of rice and raw cotton to outer districts. As a result of this campaign the price of rice fell from a previous 3 dou of rice for one silveryuan to 4 dou. Needless to say, the peasant struggle went against the interests of the landlords, who wanted to reap high profits by taking advantage of the rice shortage. On July 20, 1923, the county govemment, which had been bribed by the landlords, sent troops to suppress the Yuebei Peasants and Workers Association. These troops arrested eight of the members, including the chairman and vice-chairman, on a charge of banditry. Immediately several hundred thousand peasants pro- tested. The situation in the countryside around Baiguo became very tense. This resistance movement ended in a temporary victory for the peasants because Tan Yan-kai supported them. But soon after, Zhao's troops drove Tan's troops out of the area and Zhao established his control over Baiguo. In November 1923, Zhao sent a large force to crush the peasant movement. Over a thousand peasants were killed or injured, and hundreds of houses were burned (Deng, 1924: 210).2 The first modern peasant movement in Hunan was thus forced to a close. A NEW DA Y DA WNS UNDER THE UNITED FRONT Referring to the suppression of the Yuebei Peasants and Workers Association and the Haifeng Peasants Association in Kwangtung, Chen Du-xiu ( 1923), the first chairman of the CCP, said, "We must realize that no movement of workers, peasants, or students can progress without the support of a political movement, for political freedom is necessary for every mass movement." It was true, as Chen recognized, that the peasant movement would have been difficult to organize without alliance with the national revolution, a political movement for overthrowing the warlords and foreign powers and for establish- ing an independent, democratic new China. The question then arises, what kind of policy must the political powers establish [2121 MODERN CHINA /APRIL 19 75 for the peasantry? Deng Zhong-xia ( 1924), noting the defeat of the peasant movement both in Kwangtung and Hunan, insisted that the peasant movement had to have two clear purposes- economic goals such as reduction of rents, improvement of irrigation facilities, and the like, and political goals such as popular elections, the organization of people's self-defense forces, freedom of assembly, and so on. He also called for modes of informing and organizing the peasantry that would be tailored to their actual way of life. Finally, he emphasized that the peasants had to establish their own military organization to defend themselves. When we consider that the foremost problem of the political authorities at that time was to establish widely in China a secure foundation for the national revolution, Chen's view was too ideological. In contrast, Deng, an expert on mass organization, based his recommendations on the actual conditions of the peasantry. The First National Congress of the KMT, held in January 1924, was significant for the peasant movement because at this meeting the KMT decided to form a National United Front in which the peasantry was to be included. Henceforth, the peasantry was a recognized force in the United Front. The peasant movement began to change from a traditional type into a modern one. Frustrated by warlords in the early stage of its growth in Kwangtung and Hunan, the movement was reestab- lished under the new political situation and developed rapidly. Initially this political development affected the region of Kwangtung, where the peasant movement began to improve after the fall of 1924 under the positive support of the Kwangtung National Government. The following May, the First Peasant Congress of Kwangtung Province was held. At that time peasant associations had been formed in twenty-one counties, and membership totaled about two hundred thousand. At the Second Congress held just a year later, the number of participating counties had increased to sixty-one and member- ship had risen to 620,000 (Renmin