Declaration to the Peasants
Resolution Passed at the Third Plenum of the Second
Central Committee of the Chinese Guomindang (March 16, 1927)1 Agricultural activities occupy the greater part of the lives of the citizens in
economically backward and semicolonial China, and more than 80 percent of the
population are peasants. The Chinese peasants suffer the three-fold exploitation
of the imperialists, the warlords, and the landlord class, and their misery has
reached an extreme. As a result, they are very eager to seek their own liberation.
The major objective of the Chinese national revolution is therefore to help liberate the peasants. If the peasants do not gain liberation, it is absolutely impossible
to complete the national revolution. As the largest political party leading the
national revolution, the Guomindang assumes the mission of completing the
national revolution. When this party was being reorganized in January of the
13th year of the Republic, the First National Congress promulgated a declaration
that gave special attention to the peasant problem. The Second National Congress, held in January of the 15th year of the Republic, once again adopted
guidelines regarding the peasant movement. At the Central and Provincial Joint
Session held in October of the same year, new political programs were announced, among which twenty-two were in support of the peasants' interests. For
the past three years, the members of our party have been engaged in the peasant
movement, organizing the peasant associations and leading the broad peasant
masses to join in the national revolution to promote the peasants' own interests.
The organizations are so widespread that they cover almost every part of the
country. This makes the revolutionary upsurge extremely broad and the revolutionary process extremely favorable. All this results from the fact that the peasants have suffered the most, so they are the most eager to seek liberation.
Moreover, it is only because our party has properly supported the peasants'
interests, expanded the peasant organizations, and led their actions that such a
result has been achieved.

Recently the peasant uprisings everywhere have taken on an extraordinarily
swift and violent aspect. In the three provinces of Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi
especially, great progress has been made within a short period of time. With the
advance of the Northern Expeditionary Army, the peasants in the lower valley of
the Yangzi River and in the northern provinces are bound to rise rapidly and to
become the main force in support of the revolution. In addition to participating in
the war to help the revolutionary army achieve victory, the first action taken by
the peasants after they join the revolution is to knock down the local bullies and
bad gentry and to overthrow the privileges of the feudal landlord class in the
villages. This feudal landlord class is a special class that directly exploits the
peasants the most fiercely. All the imperialists, the warlords, and the corrupt
officials depend on this special class to attain their goal of exploiting the peasants. Consequently, the feudal landlord class is the true basis of the imperialists,
the warlords, the corrupt officials, and all the other counterrevolutionaries. Unless the power of this special class is overthrown, the imperialists, the warlords,
the corrupt officials, and all the other counterrevolutionaries may suffer formal
defeats, but the solid basis that enables them to exist is by no means destroyed,
and they will constantly have the opportunity to change the nature of the revolution. As far as the peasants are concerned, for several thousand years they have
been under the rule of the political power of the feudal landlord class. Without
overthrowing the political power of the feudal landlord class in the villages, all
the economic struggles, such as the struggle for reducing rent and interest, are
simply out of the question. Thus what the revolution demands is a profound
change in the countryside. There must be a great change in every rural area, so
that the activities of the local bullies and bad gentry, of the lawless landlords,
and of all the other counterrevolutionaries can be completely eliminated by their
fear of the peasants. Village government must be taken from the hands of the
local bullies and bad gentry, the lawless landlords, and all the other counterrevolutionaries and placed in those of the peasants, and democratic organs of
the self-government, led by the peasants, must be established in the villages. This
is the only way to bring about democratic politics. Our party has the strongest
resolve to lead this struggle to ultimate victory.

If our party is to lead the peasants, who represent the democratic forces, in
the struggle against the local bullies, bad gentry, and lawless landlords who
represent the feudal forces, and to guarantee the victory of this struggle, one of
the important conditions is that the peasants should obtain arms. The peasants
must have military organizations for the purpose of self-defense. The military organizations of the feudal landlord class, such as the militia and the defense corps, must
be disarmed, and the weapons must be handed over to the peasants. In addition, our
party must seek ways to help the peasants buy weapons at low prices. In a word, we
must make sure that the peasants have enough weapons to defend their own interests. This is the real guarantee of the victory of the agrarian revolution, that is, of the
victory of the democratic forces in overthrowing the feudal forces.

After the peasants achieve victory in the political struggle, the economic
struggle immediately follows. The significance of the peasants' economic struggle lies in their opposition to exploitation by the imperialists, the warlords, and
especially the landlord class. The total of this exploitation amounts to more than
50 percent [of the peasants' income]. The task of our party is to lead the peasants
to oppose this exploitation. The political program adopted at the Joint Session of
our party includes the following clauses: (1) a reduction of the land rent of the
tenant-peasants by 25 percent; (2) a ban on extortion by usurers and a limit to
annual interest of no more than 20 percent; (3) a ban on [collecting] rent from the
previous period; (4) a ban on levies of money and grain in advance; and (5) a ban
on the contract letting system. At this Plenum, it has also been decided that the
tenant-peasants should have the right to work the land, and that the land tax laws
are to be reformed. It has moreover been decided that the organs of peasant
self-government should have overall authority over local economic matters. All
this constitutes the program for the initial economic struggle by the peasants. Our
party must exercise the leadership in this struggle and carry it to victory in the
aftermath of the political struggle. In areas ruled by the national government, we
must use political power to help the peasants reach this goal.

Not only this, but with the progress of the revolution the peasants' demands
have been developing rapidly from the initial stage to the second stage, and
serious land problems have already emerged in many places. In the nature of the
case, China's peasant problem is, as regards its content, a problem of the poor
peasants. The number of the poor peasants has been constantly increasing down
to the present. The utterly impoverished peasants who have no property at all,
and the less impoverished peasants who have a little property but not enough to
make a living, account for the majority of the whole peasantry. The existence of
this broad poor-peasant class is the cause of all the instability and turmoil. At the
same time, they are the key element in the motive force of the revolution. Unless
the poor-peasant problem is solved, all the instability and turmoil will not subside, and the revolution will go on for a long time without reaching completion.
The core issue of the poor-peasant problem is the issue of the land. Now in the
provinces under jurisdiction of the national government especially in
Guangdong, Hunan, and Hubei, where the peasant movement is well developed the demands of the poor peasants for land are becoming quite urgent. The
land problem for the poor-peasant masses in the North is also very serious. The
Director General of our party, Mr. Sun, had a deep insight into this and pointed
out twenty years ago that "equalization of land ownership" is a revolutionary
program. The Declaration of the First National Congress mentions that "the state
should provide land to those peasants to plow, who have lost their land and
become tenant-peasants." Moreover, in his lectures on the Principle of People's
Livelihood, the Director General put forward the slogan of "land to the tiller,"
because he understood profoundly that the ultimate demand of the peasants is to
have land. The peasants will not support the revolution until its final victory unless they are given land. Consequently, our party has resolved to support the
peasants in their struggle for land, and will never cease to do so until the land
problem has been completely solved.

Not only do the poor peasants have no land, but they have no capital either.
As a result of the progress of the revolution, the well-to-do classes in the villages
become extremely reluctant to lend money. In many places the relationship
between the lender and borrower is almost broken off. This puts the society of
poor peasants in a constant state of anxiety. Unless we develop some concrete
policies, we will not be able to solve this problem of lack of capital. In the manifesto
of the First National Congress of our party we read: "Because of lack of capital, the
peasants have borrowed money at exorbitant rates of interest and become heavily in
debt all their lives. The state will help create the coordinating institutions, such as the
peasants' bank, to provide for these deficiencies."2 The Political Program of the Joint
Session of Central and Provincial Organs also lists the establishment of the peasant
bank in a separate article and stipulates that the loans will be provided to the peasants
at an annual interest of 5 percent.3 Our party should ask its government to work
hard in the areas where the revolutionary forces are spreading, to establish the
peasants' bank and other lending institutions with favorable conditions within
the shortest period of time in order to solve the problem of lack of capital.

In a word, the completion of the national revolution depends on the rising up
of the peasants all over the country. Our party always stands for the interests of the
peasants and represents the peasants in the struggle. Our party always supports every
reasonable struggle of the peasants. We must make sure that all the special classes
who exploit the peasants lose the means to do so; that the degree of their exploitation
is reduced; and that every oppressed peasant is truly liberated. This is the historic
mission of our party. We will carry out this mission without the slightest hesitation.

Proposed by: Deng Yanda,4 Chen Kewen, and Mao Zedong Members of the Standing Committee of the
Central Peasant Movement Committee

---

Notes

This document appeared in the Hankou Minguo ribao on April 1, 1927. Our translation is
based on the text as reproduced in Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 2, pp. 267-71.
1. In some sources, this document is dated March 19, 1927, but the Nianpu (Vol. 1, p.
188) indicates that it was adopted by the Third Plenum on March 16, at the same time as
the resolution translated above.

2. The quotation is from the section of the manifesto dealing with the Principle of
People's Livelihood.

3. In fact, the "Basic Program," translated above, which had been adopted on October
27, 1926, did not contain a separate article on a peasant bank. Article 11 stipulated in part,
however: "Establish a national bank. Develop agricultural, industrial, and commercial
enterprise through minimal interest rates."

4. Deng Yanda (1895-1931), zi Zesheng, was a native of Guangdong. After participating in the 1911 Revolution, he graduated from Baoding Military Academy, and by 1922
had risen to the rank of regimental commander. In 1924 he helped create the Huangpu
Academy, and at the Second Congress in January 1926 he was elected an alternate member of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee. During the Northern Expedition, he
served as director of the general political department of the National Revolutionary Army.
By the time of the Third Plenum of March 1927, Deng had sided firmly with the Wuhan
leftists against Chiang Kaishek, and became head of the party's Peasant Department.