ABSTRACT
The land reform of 1950 was far from egalitarian from an economic point of view. Although it established an essential minimum for each person, it showed caution, primarily, in its treatment of rich peasants, who were often better equipped, better organized, and more hard-working than the rest. Three hundred million poor peasants had their plots of land enlarged and instead of being tenant farmers, at least in a partial sense, became for a short time owners of small independent holdings, subject to a tax of 17 to 19 percent of the value of their harvest. The results of the year 1952, which were little improved by those of 1953, fell well below the production needed for the consumer market and industrial construction, according to Teng Tzu-hui, who was in charge of agriculture. Financial recovery was the fruit of numerous measures depending for their success on a highly authoritarian political context.
