Searching for Fairness in Revolutionary China: Inheritance Disputes in Maoist Courts and Their Legacy in the PRC Law of Succession

Abstract

This article examines how PRC judges ruled on inheritance disputes during the Mao period (1949–1976). In fact, China not only rejected a draft succession law in 1956, it also did not promulgate any law governing succession until 1985. In part, this has contributed to the conventional characterization of China in the Mao period as a “lawless society” dominated by radical Maoist and Marxist ideologies. By using newly available archival documents and internal publications of local courts and legal cadres, this article reveals that PRC judges rejected the codification of law because the legal principles stipulated in the 1956 draft succession law could not be applied to the complex social reality of rural China at the time. Therefore, court rulings became products of the long-standing efforts of judges to reconcile the principles of justice inherent in the 1956 draft succession law and complex social realities in order to deliver judgments that all litigants could accept as fair. This article highlights how such efforts finally led to a codified law of succession in 1985. Hence, the Succession Law of 1985 was not a departure from the previous “lawless” Mao era, but the completion of PRC judges’ long process of amending the “incomplete” 1956 draft.