A Review of the changes of the right transfer system of Rural Homestead in China

Since the founding of the people's Republic of China, China's rural land system has experienced several changes and repeated changes, each of which has a profound relationship with the historical background at that time. The transfer of rural homestead rights, as a part of the rural land system, has also experienced historical changes. The investigation of this historical change is helpful for our country to sort out the problems and sum up the rules on the choice of the current rural homestead right transfer system, so as to effectively find a practical solution. This paper intends to divide the historical changes of China's rural homestead right transfer system into different historical periods, so as to sort out its development context and the regularity behind it.

The period of land reform

Based on the fundamental nature of the land problem, at the beginning of the founding of the people's Republic of China, China promulgated a special "Land Reform Law", and the rural homestead is also within the scope of the adjustment object of the law. Article 1 of the law expressly stipulates that "the land ownership of feudal exploitation by the landlord class shall be abolished and the land ownership of the peasants shall be implemented", establishing the basic land ownership as the private ownership of the peasants. The implementation of this kind of farmers' private ownership is realized through the way of "robbing the rich to help the poor", that is, "confiscating the landlords' land, livestock, farm tools, surplus grain and their surplus houses in rural areas" as stipulated in Article 2 and "all confiscated and expropriated land and other means of production, except for the provisions of this Law, shall be taken over by township farmers' associations. It is reflected in a unified, fair and reasonable distribution to the poor peasants who have no land and little land and lack other means of production, and the same share to the landlords. After the implementation of the law, the whole country carried out land reform in batches for the new liberated areas that had not yet carried out land reform. by the end of 1952, the land reform was basically completed, and the feudal land exploitation system that had existed in our country for more than two thousand years was completely abolished. The peasants became the masters of the land. In other words, "the basic content of the land reform is to confiscate the land of the landlord class and distribute it to the peasants who have no or little land. In this way, as a class, the class of landlords was abolished and the feudal exploitation of land ownership was changed into the land ownership of the peasants. It is true that such a reform is the largest and most thorough reform in thousands of years in Chinese history. " However, it is worth noting that during the period of land reform, we eliminated only the system of feudal exploitation of land, not private ownership of land. In fact, Article 30 of the Land Reform Law clearly stipulates that "after the completion of the land reform, the people's government shall issue land ownership certificates and recognize the right of all landowners to operate, buy, sell and lease their land freely." Because the core result of the land reform is the distribution of land ownership to individual farmers rather than the state or collective, and the individual ownership of farmers also belongs to private rights, this reform reflects the private ownership of land, so it is attributed to the sequel of the democratic revolution by later generations. Under the background of private ownership of land, rural homestead is no exception. As a result of the land reform, farmers in most areas receive the Certificate of Real Estate Rights of the people's Republic of China issued by the government. At that time, the law allowed the sale, lease and listing of land, but at that time, farmers lived a difficult life, homestead was important property to them, and there were few acts of selling or leasing homestead. " (minced Ginger, 2013) it can be seen that in accordance with the private ownership of land, the system of free circulation is adopted for the ownership of homestead of individual farmers during the period of land reform.

The period of socialist transformation

In December 1953, Mao Zedong pointed out: "this is a transitional period from the founding of the people's Republic of China to the basic completion of socialist transformation." The general line and task of the Party during this transitional period is to gradually realize the socialist industrialization of the country and the socialist transformation of agriculture, rival industry and capitalist industry and commerce over a long period of time. " Based on the guidance of this thought, the preface to the 1954 Constitution confirmed: "this is a transitional period from the founding of the people's Republic of China to the establishment of a socialist society." The general task of the state during the transitional period is to gradually realize the socialist industrialization of the country and gradually complete the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce. " The history of this period is called the socialist transformation period. However, similar to the period of land reform, we should not misinterpret this period as the full realization of public ownership. In fact, private land ownership is still explicitly recognized in the 1954 Constitution. Article 5 of the Law stipulates: "there are mainly the following types of ownership of the means of production in the people's Republic of China: state ownership, that is, ownership by the whole people; cooperative ownership, that is, collective ownership by the working people; ownership by individual labourers; ownership by capitalists." Article 8 also stipulates: "the state protects farmers' ownership of land and other means of production in accordance with the law." Article 11 stipulates: "the State protects the ownership of citizens' legitimate income, savings, houses and various means of livelihood." Article 12 states: "the State protects citizens' right to inherit private property in accordance with the law." At that time, homestead was mainly used as a means of life, but it did not rule out the possibility of it as a means of production, since the state explicitly stipulates to protect farmers' land ownership and the ownership of various means of livelihood, it can be affirmed that rural homestead is still owned by farmers, and the legislation does not make any prohibitive provisions on the transfer of homestead rights, which should be understood as allowing it to circulate freely.

The period of advanced agricultural producers' cooperatives

After the founding of the people's Republic of China, a small number of high-level agricultural producers' cooperatives were gradually established on the basis of primary agricultural cooperatives in North and Northeast China, where land reform and mutual aid and cooperation movements were carried out earlier. In 1955, the number increased to 500, with 40,000 participating farmers. By the end of 1956, China had basically completed its socialist transformation, and the number of senior agricultural producers' cooperatives soared to 540000, with 119.45 million participating farmers, accounting for more than 96 percent of the total number of farmers in the country. The general establishment of high-level agricultural producers' cooperatives marks a fundamental transformation of land ownership in China, because under this system, farmers' private land is transferred to collective ownership free of charge. However, for some homestead, legislators have exceptions, which are embodied in the Model Charter of Advanced Agricultural producers Cooperatives adopted by the third session of the first National people's Congress in 1956. Article 16, paragraph 2, of the model charter stipulates: "members' original graveyards and house foundations do not have to join the club." The foundation for the newly built houses and the graveyards for the members without graveyards shall be solved by the co-operatives as a whole, and when necessary, the co-operatives may apply for the assistance of the township people's committees. " Thus it can be seen that the old method of old land and the new method of new land were implemented for homestead at that time, that is, only the newly applied homestead belonged to the co-operative, and the existing homestead was still privately owned by the peasants, and naturally there were no restrictions on its circulation.