The rural land system in New China has undergone four major changes.

The first time was land reform (1949.9 ~ 1953 spring). Land reform is the full realization of China's policy proposition on rural land in the revolutionary war era and the exploration of "dividing fields and land" in the base areas, and it is the continuation, expansion and deepening of land reform in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the liberated areas during the liberation war. 1949 On September 29th, China People's Political Consultative Conference adopted the same program, stipulating that "in areas where land reform has been implemented, farmers' land ownership must be protected. In areas where land reform has not yet been implemented, it is necessary to mobilize the peasant masses and establish peasant organizations. Eliminate bandits and bullies, reduce rents and interest rates, and distribute land, thus realizing land to the tiller. "1June, 950, the Land Reform Law of the People's Republic of China was promulgated and implemented, and China's land reform was in full swing. By the spring of 1953, except for some ethnic minority areas (about 7 million people) where the central government decided not to carry out land reform, the land reform in Chinese mainland had been declared complete, and more than 300 million poor peasants who had no land and little land had obtained more than 700 million mu of land, exempting 35 billion Jin of grain rent, thus realizing the long-cherished wish of "land to the tiller" for generations. It can be seen from the historical documents in the early days of the founding of New China that "farmers exist as small private owners after land distribution ..."; Farmers' private land can be bought, sold and leased, but it is subject to certain restrictions. In order to protect farmers' private property rights, the county people's government at that time generally issued certificates of ownership of land and real estate to farmers. In this basically unified national legal text, it was stipulated that farmers' land and real estate "are the private property of their own families, and they are completely free to farm, live, pawn, transfer, give and rent, and no one can infringe on them". The far-reaching impact of land reform was fully reflected in the agricultural growth in the following years. Compared with 1949 in 1952, the total grain output increased from113180,000 tons to163.92 million tons, with an average annual growth of13./kloc-. The total cotton output increased from 444,000 tons to 6.5438+0.304 million tons, with an average annual increase of 4.365438+0.5%; Oil increased from 2.564 million tons to 41930,000 tons, with an average annual growth rate of 2 1. 17%.

The second time was the land system reform in the movement of mutual assistance and cooperation (1953 ~ 1957). The movement of mutual assistance and cooperation has generally gone through two stages. First, from the national liberation to the stage of mutual aid groups and primary cooperatives in the summer of 1955; The second stage is the advanced social stage from 1955 to 1957. Mutual aid groups include temporary mutual aid groups and perennial mutual aid groups. In accordance with the principle of voluntariness and mutual benefit, on the basis of retaining the private ownership of land and other means of production, farmers help each other by means of manual mutual reform, manual conversion to livestock industry, planting crops, parallel planting, partnership management, etc., to solve production difficulties or increase income. The most important feature of primary agricultural production cooperatives is that farmers still have land ownership, but they must be handed over to primary cooperatives for unified use, allowing members to keep small plots of land for their own use. At the end of the year, farmers' land shares participate in dividends. Therefore, primary cooperatives are sometimes called land cooperatives. Advanced cooperatives are community collective economic organizations established on the basis of primary cooperatives. Land, livestock and large farm tools enter the cooperative at a fixed price (shares), which are collectively owned and managed in a unified way. However, agricultural cooperatives are still allowed to leave 5% of the total cultivated land to farmers, operate in a decentralized manner, and freely grow vegetables or other horticultural crops. The private plots are owned by the collective, and no public grain is levied or retained by the collective. It is stipulated that operators shall not sell, lease or illegally transfer without permission. To sum up, we can clearly see the process and path of transforming farmers' private land into community (senior cooperative) collective public land.

The third time is the institutional arrangement of collective ownership and unified management under the commune system (1958 ~ 1978). Three-level ownership of rural land is implemented under the commune system. Its practice is that all the land originally belonging to agricultural cooperatives, members' plots, cemeteries, homesteads, farm animals, farm tools and other means of production, as well as all public property, are owned by the third-level people's commune free of charge. Commune implements unified planning, unified production and unified management of land, and implements egalitarian "distribution according to work". However, it should be pointed out that during the twenty-five years' operation, the commune system changed from "rectifying and consolidating the organization of the commune ..." (1958.12) to correcting the mistake of "leveling one level, adjusting two levels and collecting three incomes" (1959.2) to requiring that "people's communes are being implemented in various places". The revised draft of "Regulations on the Work of Rural People's Communes" (namely Article 60 of People's Communes) (1962.9) was issued, which marked the ownership relationship of rural people's communes and followed Article 60 of People's Communes. Land, labor, livestock and farm tools were finally "fixed" to production teams, and distribution accounting was also based on production teams, forming a community-based rural economic management pattern with production teams and production teams as basic units.

The fourth time was the reform of "collective land and household contract management" (1979 ~ today). Since the reform 30 years ago, the changes of rural land system in China have gone through two main stages. In the first stage (1978- 1999), the agricultural production responsibility system was restored and expanded, and a new rural land system of "collective ownership of land, household contract management, long-term stability of contract rights and encouragement of legal circulation" was gradually established. In the second stage (2000-2008), the rural land system reform was carried out along two main lines: first, the land contract system was continuously improved and standardized through legislation; The second is to explore and promote the reform of land acquisition system and rural construction land system. The rural land system changes in the past 30 years have taken the road of combining farmers' spontaneous system innovation with the strong implementation of the state, and taken the road of "clarifying ownership, stabilizing contracting rights, freeing the right to use, guaranteeing the right to income, and respecting the right to dispose of", which has formed a relatively complete and shaped new land system so far. The basic spirit of this system is to give farmers long-term and guaranteed land use rights while fully realizing the benefits of collective land ownership; The policy contents of this system include insisting that the collective ownership of rural land will remain unchanged for a long time, and the household contract management of collective land will remain unchanged for a long time, allowing farmers to transfer the land management right legally, voluntarily and with compensation during the contract period, allowing collective economic organizations to auction the management right of barren hills, wasteland, barren slopes and beaches, and implementing moderate scale operation by centralized land management right transfer with compensation where conditions permit. These spirits and policies are embodied in the rural land contract law in legal form.