Deng Zihui

Revolutionary Career and Rural Work

Deng Zihui was born on 17 August 1896 in Longyan, Fujian Province, and became one of the most important rural affairs specialists in the Chinese Communist Party. He joined the peasant movement in his early years, helped establish the Minxi (western Fujian) Soviet, and spent much of his revolutionary career working on land policy in rural base areas. During the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Civil War, he directed land reform pilot programmes in the Central China and East China base areas, accumulating extensive grassroots experience and developing a deep understanding of China's agrarian question. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he served as Vice Chairman of the Central-South Military and Administrative Committee, overseeing land reform in the southern provinces.

Director of the Land Reform Movement

In 1952, Deng Zihui was appointed the first Director of the Central Rural Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, taking overall responsibility for completing the nationwide land reform and then for formulating and organising the subsequent Agricultural Collectivisation Movement. He was the most important operational-level leader in implementing the 1950 Agrarian Reform Law — drafting procedural guidelines, training work teams, and coordinating provincial progress to carry the reform into approximately 300,000 administrative villages. His insistence on the principle of peasant voluntarism and his resistance to extremist conduct gave him a reputation within the Party for steady pragmatism.

The Collectivisation Dispute and Political Fate

During the accelerated collectivisation campaign of 1955, Deng Zihui's advocacy for a slower pace and respect for peasant wishes brought him into serious conflict with Mao Zedong, who accused him of walking like a "woman with bound feet" and obstructing socialist transformation. Deng was subsequently sidelined and the Central Rural Work Department's authority was greatly curtailed. After the failure of the Great Leap Forward, his calls for the restoration of private plots and free markets provoked further criticism. During the Cultural Revolution he was overthrown as a "capitalist roader" and died under political persecution on 10 December 1972. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1978, he was rehabilitated and his historical judgements on agricultural policy were reassessed.