At the First District Peasant Association Cadres and Members
Mass Meeting[1]

(January 4, 1927)

I

In the past, women were oppressed, feudal ideology was at work, and women were not permitted to enter the ancestral hall. Now that clan authority has been overthrown, they can enter the ancestral hall. Today we must invite them to sit in the seats of honor.

II

I engage in revolution for the cause of the proletariat. The friends I cherish and associate with are the poor people with no money who wear straw sandals. Our revolution has only just begun. To thoroughly eliminate the feudal landlords and evil gentry, overthrow the warlords, and drive out the imperialists will take another thirty or forty years. If the revolution does not succeed, I, Mao Runzhi, will not return to Shaoshan.

[1] Part I is a portion of a speech delivered by Mao Zedong upon seeing many women attending the First District Peasant Association cadres meeting; Part II is a portion of a speech on the revolutionary spirit of the peasants, calling on them to further organize themselves and establish their own political power.

Baimiao (White Temple) at Yintian Temple, the seat of the First District Peasant Association of Xiangtan County. Mao Zedong convened a meeting of peasant association cadres and the masses here and delivered a speech.

Maojiangong Ancestral Hall. Mao Zedong attended a mass meeting convened here by the Third and Fourth Township Peasant Associations of the Special District.