Credit for vanquishing Japanese imperialists, warlords, feudal powers of landlords, retainers of US imperialism, etc. goes to the Chinese Communist Party, and peasants were the beneficiaries of the CP victory:
***** October 1998
Income Inequality in China's Post-Great Leap Forward Era
By Satya J. Gabriel
...In pre-1949 China, income inequality was conditioned by the existence of a traditional form of feudalism in the countryside. Millions of Chinese "peasants" lived under conditions of relative or even absolute poverty (absolute in the sense that a relatively small reduction in the goods available to these farmers and their families would result in starvation) while supplying surplus products to feudal lords who lived rather lavishly. The beautiful Chinese art objects, finely crafted furniture, and porcelain utensils that are so popular among Western collectors were the consumption goods of the Chinese elite. Most ordinary Chinese would never have even seen these goods. Official government statistics showed that in 1950 "rich peasants" (those who were likely to be capitalist, living off the fruits of wage laborers' efforts) and feudal "landlords" (living off the fruits of feudal serfs' efforts) directly owned 52% of the land, but were only 9% of the population. Urban inequality was shaped by the relatively low wages paid to workers in capitalist enterprises, the low prices received by self-exploiting artisans who either had to compete with products sold by large-scale merchants or sell their products to these same merchants (although it could be argued that the self-employed artisans were price takers, it was quite clear that the merchants had enough market power to be more accurately described as price makers), the exercise of political authority by a corrupt political system that made it difficult for the poor to escape the oppressive conditions into which they were born, and the manipulation of that same political system for the narrow self-interest of government officials and certain businessmen, often members of the ruling Guomindang or relatives of such members.
The 1949 Revolution disrupted the status quo ante, led to the flight of many rich merchants, industrialists, and feudal lords, and emboldened the poor in many areas to take justice into their own hands, including the confiscation of material wealth from the homes of the rich. However, it was the Land Reform of 1950 that resulted in the most dramatic reduction in income disparities in China. The rural landlord system was demolished and replaced by an ancient economy (an economy of predominantly self-employed/self-exploiting direct producers) that was far more equal than anything that China had experienced in its modern history. According to official government statistics, the landholdings of "rich peasants" and feudal "landlords" fell from the previously mentioned 52% to 9% in 1954.
The redistribution of wealth after the 1949 Revolution stimulated a significant increase in aggregate output. There was a boom in agricultural output (agricultural output grew 25% in real terms from 1952 to 1957) and, due to both the output increase and to a sharp drop in corruption, a dramatic increase in revenues available for the provision of public goods and services. The multiplier effect of the increase in rural output and income and the increased government provisions for public goods and services resulted in a substantial improvement in per capita income in China. Thus, in the early years of the post-revolutionary regime, economic growth and a reduction in income disparities were completely compatible objectives. It certainly appeared possible to make a majority of the people better off, and consequently more supportive of the new government, while simultaneously pushing production closer to the production possibilities frontier. This undoubtedly added impetus to the Maoist push to make greater income equality a priority for the new government....
<http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/economics/china-essays/6.html> *****
The decisive land reform is the key to economic development (socialist or capitalist), whoever exercises the political power to put it in practice.
On the other hand, the hardest hit among the Chinese population under the policy of economic liberalization must be peasants who had benefited from the post-revolutionary egalitarianism. -- Yoshie
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