FANSHEN (Turning-Over): Reshaping of Rural Order in Land Reform

The term “FANSHEN (Turning-over)” refers to liberation from oppression and changing unfavorable circumstances. This term was widely used in the land reform led by the Chinese Communist Party. It popularly demonstrates the idea of farmers breaking the shackles of the feudal system and gaining a new life, i.e., those who had been long been stepped on by others finally standing up to humiliation. Based on the research of the American scholar Mr. William Hinton’s “FANSHEN - A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village” (Publisher: Vintage; First edition (January 1, 1966); Chinese version, Beijing Press, 1980), this article re-examines the land reform process in Zhangzhuang, Shanxi Province. Faced with politically conservative and indifferent farmers, the Communists used a combination of material incentives and ideological education to mobilize farmers to respond to the land reform movement. Farmers gradually moved from passive to active FANSHEN and from material uprising to spiritual FANSHEN. At the same time, the Communists extended political power into rural society and established new authority. “FANSHEN” is a synonym for the Communist Party and farmers reshaping the social order of the countryside. After the FANSHEN, grassroots elites in the countryside quickly raised to the top, traditional elites were relegated to the bottom, various mass organizations developed vigorously, traditional organizations were destroyed, democratic progressive thoughts sprouted, and feudal backward thoughts were despised. Additionally, the relationships between farmers, the state and the party were unprecedentedly close. In brief, the “FANSHEN” led farmers into a whole new world.