The Formation of Precapitalist Landlordism: The Case of Land Reform in Wanglinyang Village

Based on the “Preliminary Records of Land Reform in Wanglinyang” created during the Land Reform, this article reconstructs land ownership and utilization in Wanglinyang village of Huangyan county, Zhejiang, prior to the reform and analyzes class relations, especially landlords and rich peasants, in the village in order to explicate the formation of precapitalist landlordism. It has long been assumed that “landlords and rich peasants, accounting for less than ten percent of the rural population, possessed seventy to eighty percent of the arable land.” It was on the basis of this estimate of land ownership in rural China that the Land Reform was conducted. Wanglinyang village, however, saw no high-level concentration of the land and the attendant polarity in social differentiation; nor was there a class struggle between landlords and peasants. Nevertheless, because of restructuring by the Land Reform, this village appeared to become a rural community with all the features associated with precapitalist landlordism.