Chinese Peasants in the Communist Revolution

It is undeniable that the peasants depended on organization for the success of their efforts, but it is also true that the groups of peasants holding up the revolution were composed of special individuals. Hinton presents a description of a number of such peasants. Han Ta-ming was such an individual. Hinton describes Ta-ming as forty-three years old, "lean and strong" and says he "talked . . . with pride of the way [he and his fellow peasants] had overcome all obstacles." The durability and determination of the peasants was unparalleled before and throughout the revolution:

Once he had owned ten mou of very poor land. Then the Japanese came, and after them th

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was not until after the war had been concluded with Japan that the peasants can be said to have had their awareness of the political realities of their situation raised to a meaningful level: "The development of the peasants' political consciousness did not proceed very far. The war intervened" (Hinton Fanshen 93). After the war, however, the focus shifted from the Japanese to the old order and the landlord system which exploited the peasants and which had been virtually destroyed already by the war itself: The end of an era carried in its wake the end of a millennium. It happened so quickly that neither the new forces nor the old were able to grasp the profound significance of the change. It was to take at least three years before the shift wrought in the course of one night of battle [the Battle of Long Bow] could be consolidated by popular action, before a new pattern of life based on the equal ownership of the land could be created (Hinton Fanshen 103). The peasants had formed an important part of the victory over Japan, but then all Chinese had to some extent joined in that unified struggle. After victory over Japan, however, the Chinese people were split by the struggle for power between Mao and Chiang Kai-shek. The lan
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Approximate Word count = 3067
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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