The following brief comments refer at all times to the text of the Agrarian Reform Law of the People's Republic of China, a document consisting of 42 articles, promulgated and put into effect on June 30, 1950 by the Central People's Government, set forth in the book published in the year 1958, which also contains the "Report on the problems of land reform" presented to the second session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Council on June 14, 1950 by Liu Shao-chi, a politician who became president of the People's Republic of China and was deposed during the cultural revolution and accused along with his collaborator Deng Xiaoping of scum and traitor as well as dabbling in capitalism, who was later posthumously rehabilitated and today considered in China as one of the great historical leaders of the Communist Party.
It is extremely interesting to see how in article 1 of this law, General Issues, the center of the discussion is pointed out point blank and without anesthesia,
"The feudal property system of the landlord class is abolished, and replaced by the system of land ownership by the peasants...",
that is to say, the Chinese agrarian reform is not the substitution of one owner for another, it is not a take off yours to put me on; As the text says, it is a political change where one system is replaced by another and eventually the people who own the land will continue to be so under a new land distribution system and property allocation.
Article 2, as its title indicates, orders the confiscation and requisition of the land, but then article 4, which orders respect for the remaining assets of the landowners and
"Harming industrial and commercial companies as a consequence of land confiscations is prohibited"
which seems like a nod to the existence of property and the respect that the state must give it.
Another very interesting issue in this law is the categorization of subjects in article 9, specifically and legally calling them landowners, rich peasants, poor peasants, salaried peasants, and mentions natural or legal persons or citizens such as government workers, soldiers, widowers, pensioners and associations, as "other" classes that make up rural societies, which is unfortunate from our Western point of view where the only valid treatment given to people in politics is that of citizen and socially is that of person.
It says in its article 12 that
"..., the lands belonging to the primitive cultivators must not be taken from them to benefit others."
This leads us to think that this law respects ancestral property even when there are no documents and makes it clear that the use, enjoyment and cultivation during previous years can be put before it as proof of ownership, even as a tenant.
It is very important that she orders, in her article 30, the delivery of
"... property titles to the lands distributed among the peasants, ensuring the right to free exploitation, purchase and sale..."
what appears to be a direct order for the creation of private property made by the communist state for the benefit of the people.
One of the articles that has more substance to be discussed in law schools and in political forums is number 34 that orders
"the popular governments... effectively guarantee the rights... of the peasants... the full right to freely exercise criticism..."
which is an unusual discovery for some people who regard communist regimes as deaf to constructive criticism and positive attention.
What is also subject to criticism and analysis of all kinds is the statement made in article 5 that says
"The revolutionary soldiers, the families of the martyrs of the revolution,..." should not be considered landowners.
what is the apparent contradiction to what is written in literal D) of article 13 that indicates, the people who
"... they exercise a profession that provides them with sufficient resources to maintain themselves on a regular and permanent basis."
will be excluded from the legal distribution.
Some people, at some point, could have thought and imagined that the agrarian reform of the People's Republic of China was carried out or in terms very different from these and it is possible that they are right; and that the results could be different from those that occurred from having applied this legal framework and it is also possible that they are right. Only concise investigations can tell us which, within the framework of legality, what was the result obtained and its load of legitimacy.
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario