Report on Propaganda
(January 8, 1926)

Written Propaganda
I. Newspapers
A. Papers run by the party:
1. The Shanghai Minguo ribao (Republican Daily). Formerly under the private ownership of Ye Chucang and others, it came under party management following the First National Party Congress, at which point tens of
thousands of yuan were spent to enlarge it, with later monthly expenses
amounting to 2,500 to 3,000 yuan. But from the beginning it could never
be considered a true party paper, since it contains a great deal of false
and specious views and reporting. Since the Western Hills Conference it
has become an organ of the reactionaries.
2. The Guangzhou Minguo ribao (Republican Daily). Formerly run by the
Guangzhou municipal party office, in October of 1924 it came under the
management of the Central Propaganda Department.1 Its distribution has
increased from something over 1,000 copies to more than 11,000 copies.
3. The Guangzhou Guomin xinwen (National News). Formerly an organ of
the reactionaries, following the Liao affair2 it became a party paper under
the management of the Central Propaganda Department, and when the
Guangdong provincial party office was established it reverted to the provincial party office. At present more than 7,500 copies are issued daily.
4. The Xiangjiang3Chenbao (Morning Post). For a period of time it was run
by the party; then it defected to the party of the enemy, and has since
ceased publication.
5. The Hong Kong Xinwenbao (News). Since August of 1924, when it severed
relations with Chen Jiongming, it has been under the guidance of our party.
At the beginning of the strikes it was closed down by the Hong Kong government. Before being closed down, its circulation had reached more than 8,000,
most of which were sold abroad, with Hong Kong sales next.

6. The Beijing Minbao (People's Paper). Not long after it began publication
it was shut down by Zhang Zuolin.

B. Daily newspapers run by individual comrades or in the name of associations or organizations: Having as yet no complete survey, we have no statistics.
C. There are many daily newspapers run by overseas Chinese party offices
abroad, but having as yet no complete survey, we have no statistics.

II. Weeklies
A. Party run:
1. The Zhongguo Guomindang zhoukan (Guomindang of China Weekly).
Published by the Central Executive Committee following the First National Party Congress and discontinued soon afterwards.
2. The eight weekly supplements of the Guangzhou Minguo ribao (Republican Daily), in the fields of literature, science, studies on the thought of
Sun Yatsen, economics, the common people, agriculture, women, and
films. Soon ceased publication.
3. The Dangsheng zhoukan (Party Voice Weekly). Under the direction of the
Central Propaganda Department. In the beginning it belonged to the Republican Daily. It later became independent but soon ceased publication.
4. The Pinglun zhi pinglun (Review of Reviews). Following the First National Party Congress, it was under the direction of the Propaganda Department of the Shanghai Executive Bureau and distributed by the
Shanghai Republican Daily. Soon ceased publication.
5. The several weekly supplements of the Shanghai Republican Daily, on
science, the common people, etc., all of which lasted only a short time.
6. The Zhejiang zhoubao (Zhejiang Weekly). Published by the Zhejiang provincial party office. Soon ceased publication.
7. The Xinmin zhoubao (New People's Weekly). Published by the Hunan
provincial party office, following the First National Party Congress. Soon
ceased publication.
8. Zhongguo guomin (People of China). Published by the Shanghai Federation of District Party Offices, following the Western Hills Conference.
Mainly devoted to opposing the Western Hills Conference and the arguments of the right wing. Now published every three days.
9. The Wuhan pinglun (Wuhan Review). Sponsored by the Hubei provincial
party office, it has continued publication without interruption.
10. The Zhengzhi zhoubao (Political Weekly). Began publication in December 1925, under the sponsorship of the Central Propaganda Department, in 40,000 copies per issue, with the objective of destroying the
counterrevolutionary propaganda of the North and of the Yangzi River
areas.

B. Various Guangdong military and military academy weeklies and semimonthlies, such as:
1. Huangpu chao (Huangpu Tides) of the Huangpu Military Academy.
2. The Geming banyuekan (Revolutionary Semimonthly) of the Second
Army.
3. The Junsheng (Army Voice) of the Fourth Army.
4. Rendao (Humanism) of the Army to Attack Hubei (Gong'ejun), etc.

C. Periodicals published by comrades in the name of associations. There are
many in this category, such as:
1. The periodicals of student groups found everywhere, such as Zhongguo
xuesheng (The Chinese Student), etc.
2. Periodicals of worker groups, such as Gongren zhi lu (The Worker's
Road), etc.
3. Periodicals of peasant groups, few in number, some in Guangdong.
4. Periodicals of army groups, such as, in the Guangdong area, Zhongguo
junren (The Chinese Soldier), Gemingjun (Revolutionary Army), Qingnian junren lianhehui zhoukan (Young Soldiers' Association Weekly);
and in Yantai, Xin haijun (The New Navy), etc.
5. Periodicals of women's groups, of which there are four or five nationwide.
6. Periodicals published by other groups.

III. Monthlies The year before last, there were two: Xin jianshe (New Reconstruction) and
Xin minguo (New Republic), which appeared for only a short time. At present
there is only Zhongguo nongmin (The Chinese Peasant), published by the Central
Peasant Department, which has just begun publication.

IV. News Agencies 1. The Central News Agency (Zhongyang Tongxunshe), directly under the
management of the Central Propaganda Department, has been quite successful and has been in operation for two years now.
2. Several other news agencies have relations with us.

V. Books 1. Central: The Central Propaganda Department has published about 30 (of
which 12 are about Mr. Sun's Three People's Principles, his Fundamentals of National Reconstruction, and so on; 11 are on the collected talks of
comrades such as Wang Jingwei; and about 5 are compilations from the Central Propaganda Department), in a total of 393,959 copies. They have
mainly been distributed only in Guangdong.
2. Local: Not clear, no statistics.

VI. Propaganda Leaflets 1. Central: The Central Propaganda Department has in all 83 propaganda
leaflets, distribution limited solely to Guangdong.
2. Local: Not clear, no figures.

VII. Posters 1. Central: In Guangzhou city, the Central Propaganda Department and the
Guangzhou Bureau of Public Security have cooperated in putting out two
kinds of posters, one to be tacked up on telephone poles and one to be
written on walls. The topics are all taken from the Manifesto of the First
National Party Congress and from the testament of Mr. Sun.
2. The armies: The political departments of the First, Second, Third, and
Fourth armies, the navy, and the Huangpu Military Academy, and the
officers' schools attached to the Second and Third armies have put out
many posters that have been widely effective.
3. Popular mass groups: In Guangdong, peasant associations and labor unions
have printed a great many.

Pictorial Propaganda I. The Importance of Pictorial Propaganda 1. More than 90 percent of the Chinese people are illiterate. Only a small
portion of the popular masses throughout China can understand the written
propaganda of our party, so pictorial propaganda is particularly important.

II. Achievements to Date 1. Central organs: Began only in April of last year. Rather little has been
done, and again mostly in Guangdong, in the following three projects.
a. Four small satirical cartoons have been submitted weekly to the
Guangzhou Republican Daily (with some lapses).
b. One piece of pictorial propaganda has been put out once a week (at
times one every two or three weeks).
c. Small photographs of Mr. Sun Yatsen and Mr. Liao Zhongkai have
been printed.
2. The various armies: The political departments of the armies have done
quite a bit of pictorial propaganda, and especially when engaged in battles,
they have put up a lot of pictorial propaganda in the places reached in their
campaigns, which has had a great deal of influence on the popular masses.
3. The various popular mass organizations: The Guangdong Workers' Asso- ciation and Peasant Association have done a lot of pictorial propaganda
that is really able to arouse the workers, peasants, and popular masses.
There has also been a little in Beijing and in Shanghai.

Oral Propaganda
I. Oral propaganda occupies an important position in propaganda, both as to
quantity and effectiveness.

II. Oral propaganda frequently takes the form of speeches on various kinds of
topics delivered at meetings of peasants, workers, soldiers, and students.

III. The speeches given when there are political changes going on or at demonstrations and marches are a form of oral propaganda that addresses the issue of
the moment. The Central Propaganda Department has numerous times organized
propaganda teams. All provinces and cities have organized propaganda on a large
scale and have done a great deal during and since the May Thirtieth Movement.

IV. The reports on political party work presented by the responsible cadres at
meetings of party members are educational for comrades within the party. At
the memorials for the Director General,5 this is usually done by the central
departments of the party.

Propaganda on Fourteen Important Events of the Past Two Years
I. Our party reorganization: Publication of the manifesto and political program clearly revealed our opposition to imperialism and to its hangers-on. The
results were: 1. It made the popular masses understand our party and our party's objectives, and changed the attitudes of those who formerly were skeptical of
our party. It was extremely effective for propaganda outside [the party].
2. The unification of objectives and methods within the party has gradually
weeded out those individuals and small groups harboring their own objectives and methods. This has been highly effective as regards education
within the party.

II. The incident of resuming control of the Guangdong customs:6 Our antiimperialist propaganda made plain the hostility of imperialism to our party, and III. The anti-imperialism of the Shamian strike.7 IV. The Merchants' Corps incident:8 Made the popular masses recognize the
crimes of the comprador class. But our party's propaganda regarding this incident was not very forceful, while the propaganda of the counterrevolutionaries
attacking our party was formidable.

V. The Sino-Russian agreement:9 From this the Chinese came to understand
that in international affairs there is a distinction between imperialist and anti-imperialist nations. Anti-imperialist alliances have sprung up in Beijing and in
other places. The popular masses have begun to accept the slogan, "Oppose
Imperialism," and our party has put out a statement on this issue.

VI. The war against the Zhili clique:10 From this time forward, the popular
masses lost their faith in the powerful warlords. Mr. Sun issued a manifesto
regarding the Northern Expedition.

VII. The trip of the Director General to the North:11 A statement on the trip to
the North was issued, which raised the two slogans, "Convene a National
People's Assembly" and "Abolish the Unequal Treaties."

VIII. The movement to promote the formation of a National People's Assembly: Directed at Duan Qirui, this has caused the popular masses to lose faith
completely in Duan's "Reconstruction Conference,"12 and at the same time has
made the people understand more fully the political proposals of our party. In the
course of this movement, the two slogans "Convene a National People's Assem- bly" and "Abolish the Unequal Treaties" have become widely accepted among
the popular masses.

IX. The movement to mourn the Director General: Caused the popular masses
to understand Mr. Sun, our party, and our party's objectives. This movement was
very widespread, reaching even the impoverished countryside and remote hamlets. As a result, the two slogans "Convene a National People's Assembly" and
"Abolish the Unequal Treaties" became even more fully accepted by the people.
At this time, our party issued a statement breaking off relations with Duan Qirui.

X. The May Thirtieth Movement:13 Unprecedented anti-imperialism. In the
course of this movement, we spelled out the content of abolishing the unequal
treaties: such things as recovering the concessions, recovering the customs service,
recovering judicial authority, withdrawal of foreign naval and land forces stationed
in China, etc. Because of this, the popular masses have come to understand what the
unequal treaties are. Because of the severe oppression of the warlords of the Fengtian clique, this movement failed. But there was one positive achievement: The
workers of Shanghai and Hong Kong stood up. This time, our propaganda was extremely effective. The peasant masses in the countryside became universally aware
that our party had a manifesto supporting the people and opposing imperialism.

XI. The assassination of Liao Zhongkai: The popular masses recognized the
violence used by imperialism and its underlings. Our party used the mourning
ceremonies to put out quite a lot of written and pictorial propaganda.

XII. The war against the Fengtian clique: 14 Made the masses of the people
clearly recognize the relationship between the imperialists and their tools, the
Chinese warlords, and how quickly the Chinese warlords would crumble. In this
war, the popular masses had a feeling of the imminence of the victory of the
revolution. During the movement against Duan Qirui, slogans were raised everywhere directly attacking local warlords. For example, the people of Beijing had
their "Drive out Duan Qirui," the people of Wuhan had their "Drive out Wu
Peifu," and the people of Changsha had their "Down with Zhao Hengti." Once
the former peaceful attitude of avoiding direct conflict changed, the revolutionary atmosphere became charged as never before.

XIII. The movement against religion: In the last two years, organizations and
propaganda against Christianity have spread throughout the entire nation, so that
the popular masses now recognize the invasion of imperialist religion.

XIV. Political education in times of peace and political propaganda in times of war among the armed forces: The political education carried out by our party
at the Huangpu Military Academy and in the National Revolutionary Army
has created an anti-imperialist military force. Propaganda for an alliance between the army and the people during the several campaigns in Guangdong
has made the army care for the people, and has made the people support the
army. This fact, too, may be considered a very great success by our party.

Enemy Propaganda Part of our propaganda must be directly aimed at the enemy's propaganda, so let
us now take a look at the counterrevolutionary propaganda put out by the enemy
over the past two years.

I. The imperialists: Because our party's anti-imperialist propaganda has been
especially aggressive in the past two years, the slanderous attacks against our
party in imperialist propaganda have also been especially strong. Thus they have
raised the two slogans "Oppose Communism" and "Red Imperialism" to rally
their tools in China-the bureaucrats, warlords, comprador class, local bullies,
and evil gentry to attack our party. The various foreign papers and the foreign
news agencies in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Fengtian, and Hankou
may be said to have stopped at nothing in their rumor mongering, lies, provocations, and insults.

II. The various warlords: All the various domestic cliques of warlords, big and
small, have consistently defended and greatly expanded upon the slogans put out
by the imperialists, "Oppose Communism” and “Red Imperialism."

III. The comprador class: Their counterrevolutionary propaganda work has
been the same as the above, but they have worked harder at propaganda than any
other counterrevolutionary faction. The Hong Kong Gongshang ribao (Industry
and Commerce Daily) and the Shanghai Xinwen bao (News) may be taken as
representative.

IV. The Research clique: Representing the interests of the bureaucrats and large
landlords, their counterrevolutionary propaganda has been the same as above, as
represented by the Shishi xinbao (China Times) and the Chenbao (Morning
Post).

V. The Anfu clique: Representing Japanese imperialism, their counterrevolutionary propaganda has been the same as above. The Xin shenbao (New Times)
is their organ.

VI. The Federalists: Defending the interests of the bureaucrats and landlords,
their counterrevolutionary propaganda has been the same as above, and the
Zhonghua xinbao (China News) is their organ.

VII. The Étatistes: Copying something of the style of the Western Étatistes,
they defend the interests of the small landlords and Chinese industrial and
commercial bourgeoisie. Very stridently "anti-Communist" and "anti-Soviet
Russia," they are represented by the Xingshi zhoubao (Awakened Lion
Weekly).

VIII. The right wing of the Guomindang: Following the Western Hills Conference, the right wing of our party has also taken up the two slogans "Oppose
Communism" and "Oppose Soviet Russia," and has started fighting along with
the counterrevolutionary factions, adopting a hostile attitude towards our party.
The Shanghai Republican Daily represents them.

During the past two years, in the mutual opposition between revolutionary
propaganda and counterrevolutionary propaganda, revolutionary propaganda has
truly taken the offensive. This offensive stance was particularly evident in the
May Thirtieth Movement. From the beginning, counterrevolutionary propaganda
has been on the defensive, and it was only when it could not parry the blows that
it picked up the two shields of "Oppose Communism" and "Red Imperialism."
This phenomenon of direct confrontation between offense and defense has resulted in the increasing unity and aggressiveness of the Chinese revolutionary
forces and the increasing tottering and crumbling of the counterrevolutionary
forces.

Shortcomings The following shortcomings have been discovered in our propaganda work of
the past two years.

I. Our party newspapers are less than perfect.

II. The direction of propaganda regarding important events has not been
quick and alert, and much of it has been done without putting our full effort
into it.

III. We have totally lacked a system of leadership, and the upper and lower
echelons of the party propaganda offices have completely lost touch with each
other. This has created a battle situation of every man for himself, and a number
of those in positions of responsibility in the propaganda offices have given up on
their duties.

IV. The tasks of investigation and correction have been totally neglected.

V. There has been absolutely no collection of propaganda materials, and
supplying of them to lower-level party offices.

VI. There has been hardly any planned education within the party.

VII. We have concentrated too much on city people and neglected the peasantry. 15
We have concentrated too much on the written word and neglected pictorial
[propaganda].

The above are all among the greatest shortcomings in our party's propaganda
work up until now. Henceforth, they should be corrected one by one.

---

Notes
4. Since Wang Jingwei had been head of the Propaganda Department until October
1925, when Mao succeeded him, it was natural that Wang's talks should be featured in the
department's publications.

5. I.e., Sun Yatsen.
6. In December 1923 Sun Yatsen, having returned to power in Guangzhou, demanded a
share of the customs revenues collected there by the Maritime Customs Service, which was
under the control of the government in Beijing and of the diplomatic corps. When this was
refused to him, he threatened to seize the Guangzhou customs house and to appoint his own
officials. The foreign powers responded by a naval demonstration of 23 gunboats in neighboring waters, and in the face of this threat, and of opposition from the Guangzhou merchants, Sun was obliged to back down. These events contributed considerably to his
reputation as an anti-imperialist fighter.
our party's opposition to the imperialists. From the standpoint of propaganda,
this had great impact.

7. The British and French concessions were located on the island of Shamian (commonly written Shameen in Western sources) in the middle of Guangzhou. In June 1924,
after an attempt by a Vietnamese revolutionary to assassinate the governor-general of
Indo-China, who was visiting there, the foreign authorities imposed a system of passes on
Chinese employees working on the island. After a strike and blockade of Shamian lasting
nearly two months, these regulations were rescinded by the consuls.
8. Regarding this incident, in the autumn of 1924, see the note to the text of December 5, 1925, "Zou Lu and the Revolution."
9. On the Sino-Soviet agreement of May 31, 1924, see the note to the text dated July
21, 1924, "The Struggle against the Right Wing of the Guomindang."
10. The reference is to the defeat of Wu Peifu in the fall of 1924 by the armies of Feng
Yuxiang, acting in concert with Zhang Zuolin, and with the tacit support of Sun Yatsen,
which led to the removal of Cao Kun from the presidency.
11. On Sun Yatsen's trip to the North in November-December 1924, see the text of
November 1, 1924, "Strengthening Party Work and our Position on Sun Yatsen's Attendance at the Northern Peace Conference," and the note thereto.
12. The Shanhou huiyi (literally, "conference so things will be better afterwards,"
commonly translated Reconstruction Conference) was convened by Duan Qirui in February 1925 in his capacity as provisional chief executive of the Beijing government.

13. On the events of May 30 and their aftermath, see the note to the text of December
13, 1925, "To the Left or to the Right."
14. See "Propaganda Guidelines of the Chinese Guomindang in the War against the
Fengtian Clique,” dated November 27, 1925, and the notes thereto.

15. Mao's report as originally published in Zhongguo nongmin has tongmin instead of
nongmin (peasant) here. This seems so obviously a typographical error that the editors of
the Mao Zedong ji (Vol. 1, p. 151) have simply substituted nong for tong (meaning
through, or the whole), without even indicating the fact. When this text was reproduced in
Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan (Selected Writings by Mao Zedong on Journalistic
Work, [Beijing: Xinhua shudian, 1983], p. 12), the character tong was retained. Questioned about this, responsible officials of the Department for Research on Party Literature,
which edited this volume, said that they were not sure whether it should be nongmin
(peasant) or xiangmin (country dwellers). They had no doubt, however, that it should have
been one or the other of these. Finally, both the "Resolution on Propaganda" and the
"Resolution regarding the Report on Propaganda," which appear below, underscore the
importance of not neglecting the peasants and the countryside.

--- Notes

This report was first published in Zhengzhi zhoubao, Nos. 6-7, April 10, 1926. Our
translation is based on the version reproduced in Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 1, pp. 141-51.
1. I.e., the Propaganda Department of the Central Executive Committee of the
Guomindang, as acting head of which Mao delivered this report.
2. I.e., the assassination of Liao Zhongkai on August 20, 1925. See the note to the text
of July 21, 1925, "The Struggle against the Right Wing of the Guomindang."
3. Possibly a misprint for Xianggang (Hong Kong).