Agrarian Reform in the DPRK


Pyongyang, April 6 (KCNA) -- After the liberation of Korea from the Japanese colonial rule in August Juche 34 (1945) the Worker's Party of Korea made the agrarian reform, a top priority for the building of a new society. In those days nearly 80 percent of the population were peasants in Korea. The peasants had centuries-old desire to do farming in their own fields.

The agrarian reform was a prerequisite to freeing the peasants from feudal exploitation, rapidly developing agricultural productive forces and achieving prosperity of national industries and the national economy as a whole. The agrarian reform was urgently required to do away with the economic foundation of the reactionary forces, including landlords in rural villages and powerfully rouse the peasants, the driving force of the revolution, to the building of new Korea. That was why the President Kim Il Sung put forward the slogan "land to the tillers " and a unique policy of agrarian reform.

The policy was aimed at enforcing the agrarian reform on the principle of confiscation without compensation and distribution without charge and confiscating the land of the Japanese , pro-Japanese elements and traitors to the nation, the land of landlords who had more than five hectares of fields and the land rented out to others. The WPK worked hard for the successful agrarian reform, true to the class policy of relying on the poor and hired peasants, isolating the rich peasants by allying with the middle peasants and liquidating the landlords.

The 5th enlarged meeting of the executive committee of the central organizing committee of the Communist Party of North Korea that was convened on March 4, 1946, adopted a decision on the enforcement of the agrarian reform. The law on agrarian reform was promulgated on March 5. The WPK saw to it that more than 11,500 rural committees involving the poor and hired peasants were formed in North Korea, so that the reform was the concern of peasants. It also dispatched teams to rural villages to support the reform. It mobilized all the political parties and public organizations to the struggle for successful agrarian reform. As a result, more than three million people of the New Democratic Party, the Democratic Party, trade union, the Democratic Youth League and women's union helped enforce the reform.

The historic task of the agrarian reform was carried out in a matter of some 20 days.


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