Soil moisture is a leading factor that affects turnover of the labile and resistant soil carbon pools, while the turnover rate of soil organic carbon has a potential important impact on global climate change. An indoor paddy soil incubation experiment was carried out to explore effect of drying-rewetting alternation on mineralization of soil organic carbon and evaluate different soil carbon pools and their degradation dynamics using a two-order model. Results show that drying-rewetting alternation significantly stimulated soil respiration as well as metabolic activity of soil microbes. Three successive rounds of drying-rewetting alternation stimulated soil respiration by 119.3%, 159.5% and 87.3%, respectively, and with the alternation increasing in frequency, the effect intensified first and then waned. After rounds of alternation, the release of CO₂ accumulated in the soil fell lower than that from the soil kept permanently wet because the mineralization stimulated by rewetting was far from enough to make up the drop in mineralization during the drying period. Within the hours after rewetting, soil soluble organic carbon rose and then fell in content. Drying-rewetting alternation raised degradation rate of the soil labile carbon pool and lowered that of the soil resistant carbon pool. After rewetting, the soil labile carbon pool was significantly bigger in size. Frequent drying-rewetting alternation lowered soil fungi/bacteria ratio and altered the community structure of soil microbes, pushing bacteria into dominancy.