Crook Isabel, Crook David. Revolution in a Chinese Village - Ten Mile Inn

Routledge, 2005. — 223 p.In the middle of the civil war between the Chinese Communists and the Kuomintang, the writers floated on a barge down the Grand Canal, through no-man’s-land and into the Liberated Areas. At the end of November 1947, they finally reached the cluster of villages in the foothills of the Taihang Mountains which formed the capital of the Shansi-Hopeh-Shantung-Honan Border Region. There they were asked to submit a written plan of what they were interested in doing in the Liberated Areas. The plan submitted consisted of an outline for a detailed study of land reform in one village. Meanwhile, the writers were invited to stay at the Border Region Government Guest House in the village of Ten Mile Inn. This in itself was closer to the realization of their aims than it may sound, for the “Guest House” consisted of a number of rooms scattered in different villagers’ homes. The writers slept in one home, ate in another, and visited fellow visitors and members of the staff in still others. This, together with having a free run of the village, permitted a fair amount of informal observation. In a short time the writers were granted permission to go a step farther and to carry on a preliminary investigation of the village while waiting for the official decision on the plan which they had submitted. The most essential part of the material was collected during the Campaign for the Adjustment of Land Holdings and the Purification and Reorganization of the Party. This Campaign lasted from February 26th to April 15th, 1948.