The Economics of Mobilizing Free-riders: Evidence from the Chinese Civil War 1945-1949

Abstract

Land redistribution can be deliberately designed to trigger a civil war. How did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rally millions of farmers to win in 1949? The crucial step was to initiate land reform through class struggle, empowering farmers to violently take land from their landlords. Farmers desired land ownership but feared reprisals from landlords, who were backed by the Kuomintang (KMT) government. Therefore, farmers had to choose between joining the CCP's army to defend their land, and free-riding. Adopting a difference-in-difference design and examining the death records of 566,161 Communist soldiers, I find that, for counties within 81 kilometers of KMT forces, a greater share of land redistribution to farmers encouraged farmers to fight, leading to a rise in CCP soldier deaths after land reform. However, for counties that were farther than 81 kilometers from KMT forces, a greater share of land transfer to farmers discouraged them from fighting (free-riding), resulting in fewer soldier deaths after land reform. A model of class struggle for land ownership explains the two different patterns. This paper develops a novel theory of war mobilization and partially explains the emergence of communism in the twentieth century.