The National Revolution and
the Peasant Movement
(Introduction to Collected Writings
on the Peasant Problem)¹
(September 1, 1926)

The peasant problem is the central problem of the national revolution. If the
peasants do not rise up and join and support the national revolution, the national
revolution cannot succeed. If we do not speedily create a peasant movement, the
peasant problem cannot be solved. If the peasant problem is not properly solved
in the context of the present revolutionary movement, the peasants will not
support this revolution. Right down to the present day, there are still a number of
people, even within the revolutionary party, who do not understand these points.
They do not understand that the greatest adversary of revolution in an economically backward semicolony is the feudal-patriarchal class (the landlord class) in
the villages. In an economically backward semicolony, the imperialists outside
the country, and the ruling class within, rely entirely on the unstinting support
that the landlord class gives them in their attempt to carry out the oppression and
exploitation of the objects of their oppression and exploitation in that territory,
who are primarily the peasants. Otherwise, they would be unable to carry out

This article was published in Nongmin yundong (an organ of the Peasant Department of
the Guomindang Central Executive Committee), No. 8, September 21, 1926. We have
translated it from that version, which is conveniently reprinted in Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 1,
pp. 175-79.
their oppression and exploitation. Consequently, in an economically backward
semicolony, the feudal class in the countryside constitutes the only solid basis for
the ruling class at home and for imperialism abroad. Unless this basis is shaken,
it will be absolutely impossible to shake the superstructure built upon it. The
Chinese warlords are merely the chieftains of this rural feudal class. To say that
you want to overthrow the warlords but do not want to overthrow the feudal
class in the countryside, is quite simply to be unable to distinguish between the
trivial and the important, the essential and the secondary. A clear example of this
is to be found in Guangdong. Any *xian* in which the local bullies, bad gentry,
greedy bureaucrats, and corrupt officials are relatively restrained is most assuredly a *xian* in which the peasant movement has already been established, and
in which the peasant masses have joined the peasant associations. In other words,
a *xian* in which the power of Chen Jiongming² has been diminished is assuredly
a *xian* in which the peasants have arisen. We cannot deny the fact that one year
ago Guangdong belonged to Chen Jiongming, and not at all to the revolutionary
government. For the past year, and down to the present day, the realm of
Guangdong has been evenly divided between the revolutionary government and
Chen Jiongming, even though Chen Jiongming himself has not been within the
borders of Guangdong. The peasants must now gradually continue to rise up in
every *xian* of Guangdong; only this will really demonstrate that the power of
Chen Jiongming is being gradually reduced in every *xian* of Guangdong. Chen
Jiongming's native district of Haifeng *xian* has historically been aswarm with
local bullies, bad gentry, greedy bureaucrats, and corrupt officials, but ever since
it has had a peasant association of 50,000 families, with 250,000 members, it has
been cleaner than any other *xian* in Guangdong.³ The *xian* magistrate dares not
do evil, the tax collectors dare not extort money above the assessment, there are
no bandits in the whole *xian*, and the savage oppression of the people by local
bullies and evil gentry has virtually stopped altogether. Thus we can see that the
form of the Chinese revolution can only be as follows: it does not constitute a
base for the imperialists and the warlords, where local bullies, bad gentry, greedy
bureaucrats, and corrupt officials keep the peasants down, but rather a base for
the revolutionary forces, where the peasants have arisen to keep down the local
bullies, bad gentry, greedy bureaucrats, and corrupt officials. The Chinese revolution has only this form and no other. Every place in China must become like
Haifeng, for only then can the revolution be considered to have achieved victory.
Otherwise, no matter what happens, it cannot be considered a victory. Only
when every place throughout China becomes like Haifeng can it be said that the
basis of imperialism and the warlords has truly been toppled; otherwise, this will
not be the case. Thus we see that what is called
the national revolutionary movement is, for the most part, the peasant movement. Thus we see that all those
who look down on or even suppress the peasant movement really sympathize
with the local bullies, bad gentry, greedy bureaucrats, and corrupt officials, that
they really do not want to overthrow the warlords and do not want to oppose
imperialism.

There are those who say that the rampant savagery exercized by the comprador class in the cities is altogether comparable to the rampant savagery of the
landlord class in the countryside, and that the two should be put on the same
plane. It is true that there is rampant savagery, but it is not true to say that it is of
the same order. In the whole country, the areas where the comprador class is
concentrated include only a certain number of places such as Hong Kong,
Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hankou, Tianjin, and Dalian, on the sea coast and the
rivers. This is not comparable to the domain of the landlord class, which extends
to every province, every *xian*, and every village throughout China. In political
terms, the various warlords, big and small, throughout the country are all the
chieftains chosen by the landlord class (not including the bankrupt small landlords). This gang of feudal landlord chieftains, that is to say, the feudal warlords,
use the comprador class in the cities to dally with the imperialists; both in name
and in fact, the warlords are the hosts, and the comprador class are their retainers. Financially, 90 percent of the yearly expenses of several hundred million
*yuan* of the warlord governments are extracted directly or indirectly from the
peasants, who live under the domination of the landlord class. Comparatively
speaking, occurrences such as the granting of a conditional loan to the Beijing government by comprador class elements, such as the Bankers' Association,⁴ are in the last analysis very rare. Hence, although we are all aware that
the workers, students, and middle and small merchants in the cities should
rise and strike fiercely at the comprador class and directly resist imperialism,
and although we know that the progressive working class in particular is the
leader of all the revolutionary classes, yet if the peasants do not rise and fight
in the villages to overthrow the privileges of the feudal-patriarchal landlord
class, the power of the warlords and of imperialism can never be hurled down
root and branch.

For this reason, in addition to the numerous tasks of our comrades in organizing the workers, the students, and the middle and small merchants, a large
number of comrades must immediately summon up their resolve, and go to
undertake that grandiose task of organizing the peasants. They must resolve
immediately to begin studying the peasant problem. They must resolve immediately to ask the party to order them to go into that countryside with which
they may or may not be familiar, in the blazing heat of the summer sun and in the bitter cold of the winter snow storms, to grasp the hand of the peasants and
ask them about their suffering, to ask them what they want. From their suffering
and their needs, they must lead the peasants in organizing; lead them in the
struggle against the local bullies and bad gentry; lead them in cooperation with
the workers and students and the middle and small merchants in the cities, to
establish a united front; lead them to participate in the anti-imperialist, antiwarlord national revolutionary movement. We estimate that if one tenth of the
more than 300 million peasant masses in the whole country were to join peasant
associations, there would be more than 30 million organized peasants. Especially
in the provinces of Hunan, Guangdong, and Jiangxi in the south, of Zhili,
Shandong, and Henan in the north, and of Hubei and Anhui in central China,
which are of particular importance politically, great efforts must be put into
the job of organizing. If the peasants of these several important provinces rise
up, it will be easy for the peasants in the rest of the provinces to rise up with
them. We must reach this point before the base of the imperialists and the
warlords can truly be shaken, before the national revolution can truly be
victorious.

Speaking of studying the peasant problem, I feel that there is a very great
shortage of materials. Collections of this sort of materials can, of course, only
become increasingly abundant as the peasant movement develops. At present,
except for Guangdong, the peasant movement has everywhere only just begun,
so materials are exceedingly scarce. Here we have collected the few available
materials and are printing them in this series so that comrades in the peasant
revolution in different places can use them for reference.5 One part of these is
made up of investigations into the situation in the peasant villages of various
provinces as carried out by more than 300 students from the Sixth Session of the
Peasant Movement Training Institute.6 These have been discussed in the peasant
problem study meetings organized by the students in these respective provinces,
and have been examined quite closely before being printed. Most of the
students had never before investigated in detail the situation of the peasants
and therefore their writings provide only a general overview. However, before this there wasn't even a general overview, and now even this little bit we
feel is precious. We should start from this brief overview, and before long,
from real investigations of the real work done in different places, we should
derive a detailed, concrete nationwide survey. As for materials on the question of agricultural production, this volume includes only five items (nos. 22 to 26).7 There is no great shortage of materials on this question, but because
there was not enough time to collect and edit them before going to press, they
will be published separately at a later date. The peasant problem includes basically two areas of problems, namely, the problems of man-made oppression from
the imperialists and warlords, etc., and the problems of oppression from natural
events such as flood, drought, and other natural disasters, and from disease,
pestilence, poor technology, declining production, etc. The former area of problems is of course the most urgent problem at present, and the attention of comrades is naturally focused here. But the latter area of problems is also extremely
severe, and we must actively pay attention to them. Finding a solution to the
latter problems requires nationwide revolutionary political power and the scientific method. This is not something that can be accomplished overnight, but that
day is indeed fast approaching, and we need to make preparations in anticipation.
The five items of materials on Guangdong included here constitute the best
section of this volume.8 They give us a method for our work in the peasant
movement. There are a number of people who do not understand how to work in
the peasant movement, and they are invited to examine this section with particular care. It also helps us understand the basic nature of the peasant movement in
China and makes us realize that the peasant movement in China is a movement
of class struggle that combines political and economic struggle. Its peculiarities
are manifested especially in the political aspect. In this respect, it is somewhat
different in nature from the workers' movement in the cities. At present, the
political objectives of the urban working class are merely to seek complete
freedom of assembly and of association; this class does not yet seek to destroy
immediately the political position of the bourgeoisie. As for the peasants in the
countryside, on the other hand, as soon as they rise up, they run into the political

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Notes

1. The earliest available text of this essay, published in Nongmin yundong, is followed
by an editorial note reading as follows: "This is the introduction written by Comrade Mao
to Nongmin wenti congkan (Collected Writings on the Peasant Problem). We regard this as
very relevant to the national revolution, and it is specially included here for the reference
of the average comrade working with the peasant movement. As for the content of this
series, readers wishing to examine it are invited to purchase copies from the Guoguang
Shuju. We add this further introductory comment to the writer's explanatory note." This
four-volume series of materials compiled by the Peasant Movement Training Institute was
originally for use only within the Institute, and for distribution to peasant movement
activists. Information regarding some of the items included is given by Mao in the concluding section of the present article. Regarding the reprinting of this series in the spring of
1927 for a wider public, see below, the letter by Mao published on March 14, 1927, and
the notes thereto.
2. Regarding Chen Jiongming, see the note to Mao's editorial of October 20, 1925.
3. Peng Pai had, in fact, begun organizing the peasants of Haifeng as early as 1922.
See above, the note to the text of January 1, 1926.
4. The reference is presumably to the Chinese Bankers' Association, founded in 1920,
which on occasion did indeed impose conditions on the government for the purchase of its
bonds.
5. The only edition available to us is that in four volumes published in Shanghai in
May 1927 by the Wusan shudian, under the title *Nongmin congkan*. Information given
below in the notes about items cited by Mao is based on that source.

6. The Peasant Movement Training Institute in Guangdong was established by the
Peasant Department of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee on June 30, 1924,
as a training ground for peasant organizers. Mao was in charge of the sixth session, from
May 3 to September 11, 1926.
7. In the May 1927 edition of *Collected Writings on the Peasant Problem* available to
us, the items included are not numbered, either in the text or in the table of contents that
appears at the beginning of the first volume. If one counts the main headings in the table of
contents, the following sections appear to correspond to the "five items" referred to by
Mao: 24, China's main agricultural products; 25, An overview of foreign trade in China's
agricultural products; 26, National administrative, experimental, and educational organs
with reference to agriculture; 27, The progress of agriculture in various countries and its
causes; 28, The problem of China's agricultural production. (These materials appear on pp.
12-134 of Volume IV.) It will be seen that the item numbers are 24-28, rather than 22-26.
The discrepancy no doubt results from the fact that additional materials were included in
the compilation between September 1926 and the spring of 1927. The edition available to
us contains, in particular, the resolutions of the First Hunan Provincial Peasant Congress of
December 1926, though these have been added at the end of Volume IV.

8. The five items relating to Guangdong include, in addition to the resolutions of the
Provincial Peasants' Congress and the three reports on Haifeng, Guangning, and Puning
mentioned below by Mao, a "General account of the Guangdong peasant movement."
They occupy a total of over 300 pages out of the 800 in the four volumes, including the
whole of Volume III.