Resolution on the Peasant Question
Resolution of the Third Plenum of the Second Central
Executive Committee of the Chinese Guomindang¹
(March 16, 1927)

In October of the 15th year of the Republic, the Joint Session of the Central
Committee of our party and of the various provincial party organs passed several
resolutions on improving the conditions of the peasants. In the five months since
then, the struggle in the countryside between the oppressed peasants and their
oppressors (such as landlords, the gentry, local bullies, and corrupt officials) has
developed even more widely. But everywhere the resolutions of the Joint Session
have remained largely a dead letter. Although peasant associations have tried to
implement such resolutions, they have often encountered fierce resistance or
even retaliation from those who control political power in the countryside. Since
the government and party organizations are occupied with military operations,
they have been unable to protect the organizations of peasants, let alone provide
active support to enable peasants to establish their autonomous governments and
use the leverage of the power of the autonomous governments to defeat their
enemies. As a result of the victory of the Northern Expedition, many [provinces]
have been placed under the rule of the national government; four million peasants have joined peasant associations and are struggling hard for their own
liberation. At the same time, the enemies of the peasantry are doing their utmost
to suppress the development of the peasant movement and to obstruct the realization of our party's resolutions. These enemies of the peasantry, the so-called
power holders in the countryside, are also the enemies of the national revolution.
All these forces left over from the feudal system must be eliminated in order for
the national revolution to succeed. These remnant feudal forces are the root
cause of the miseries of the peasantry. They are also the basis for the existence of

This document was published in the Hankou Minguo ribao on March 18, 1927. Our
translation is based on the text as reproduced in Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 2, pp. 259-63.
the warlords and of imperialism in economically backward China. Therefore, our
party and the national government must do their best to protect and develop the
peasant organizations and see that the decisions of the Joint Session are carried
out.² These resolutions represent the first step by our party toward the liberation
of the Chinese peasants. If our party is unable to take such a step, the national
revolution will face great dangers, and it will certainly lose the support of the
peasantry, that is, the support of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese
people. If our party must work hard to develop the peasant movement, it is not
only for the sake of enabling the majority of peasants to intensify their struggle
against the warlords and imperialists. In representing the interests of the great
majority of the peasants, our party must also expand the peasant movement at all
times in order to help the oppressed peasants reach their goal of seeking their
own liberation, thanks to the power of their own organizations and struggle. In
order for our party to ensure the liberation of the peasantry, our party must
develop the organizations of the peasants so that they may use their own strength
to struggle against all the oppressive forces under any political conditions. Only
this will make the victory of the national revolution the victory of the peasantry.
Therefore, in order to establish a unified democratic polity, to ensure that the
Three People's Principles truly begin to be put into practice, and to make the
peasants understand that our party is their friend and protector, our party should
adopt the following resolution during the current plenum of the Central Executive Committee.

Immediately implement all the decisions concerning the peasant question
adopted by the Joint Session of the Central Committee and provincial party
organs in the areas newly liberated from under the iron feet of the warlords. In
particular, the methods of implementing the decisions must be devised by investigating the actual demands of the peasants. In order to reach this objective, the
Third Plenum of the Central Executive Committee recommends to the national
government that it set up a Ministry of Peasant Affairs. Its responsibility should
include the implementation of land reform, as well as economic and political
reforms and construction demanded by peasants. Moreover, in order to achieve
these goals, the Third Plenum of the Central Executive Committee has adopted
the following ten points, which the government, the party, and revolutionary
mass bodies must immediately [apply]:

1. The government must immediately start establishing self-governing organs for districts, townships, and villages, which are to be organized by rural

residents in accordance with the laws of self-government for districts and
townships. [These organs] are to manage all the administrative, economic,
financial, and cultural affairs in the districts and townships. Under the guidance of our party, peasant associations should become the center for organizing and guiding such organs of self-government. The law of self-government
for districts and townships will be written separately.

2. Within district organs of self-government, land committees should be
established (when necessary, they should also be set up within township organs of self-government) and organized by the officials sent by the governing
administrative agency of the [Ministry] of Rural Affairs and by the representatives of peasant associations. These committees are to make preparations for
land reform and implement the various methods stipulated by the government
on the rectification of land [ownership] and the use of land.

3. All rural armed groups that do not belong to the military forces of the
government must be placed under the control of district or township organs
of self-government. Those who refuse to comply must immediately be handled according to the provisions for dealing with counterrevolutionaries.
District and township organs of self-government should have the power to
reorganize such armed groups so that they may genuinely protect the people in the countryside and become the armed forces of the rural people and
the armed forces necessary for the protection of the rural people. If it is felt
that there is a lack of rifles and guns, the government must try to provide
assistance.

4. Our party should carry out completely, within this year, the Joint
Session's decision regarding a 25 percent reduction of rent. Rental and lease
contracts should be registered with the township self-governing bodies. The
township organs of self-government and peasant associations monitor and determine the maximum amount of rent in the local areas that may not be exceeded. The township organs of self-government and peasant associations
should annul all the unreasonable provisions either within or outside rental
contracts. The government should issue decrees to allow tenants to have a
permanent right to the use of land. The land may not be rented to another
tenant unless the landlord takes back the land and tills it personally. When
tenants willingly return the land, or if the land has been improved when the
landlord takes it back to till it himself, [the tenants] should receive appropriate
compensation.

5. The government should issue decrees to take back the public land
belonging to districts and townships and the properties of temples, and turn
them over to district and township organs of self-government to manage. As
for the produce of the temple estates of various clans, the clan leaders or a
small number of [X][X] elements should be forbidden to keep the control of
these assets to the detriment of the poor members of the clans.³

6. The government should severely punish corrupt officials, local bullies
and bad gentry, and all counterrevolutionaries. It should also confiscate their

land and assets according to law. Such land and assets belong to the districts
and townships and should be regarded as belonging to the people.4
7. The old system of land taxation is a genuinely unreasonable and unfair
system of taxation and should be reformed immediately. As for the various
levies and taxes imposed on the peasantry at the moment, those that hurt the
economy of the peasantry should be gradually abolished. The government
should quickly stipulate a unified tax rate that meets the needs of local areas.
Other taxes levied on land and rural products must be abolished without exception. Only this can reduce the burdens on peasants. All tax collection agencies
should be transferred to the district and township organs of self-government
and placed in charge of the special officials sent by financial administrations.
The bad gentry and local bullies must be banned from controlling [these agencies]; [these agencies] must be completely reorganized.
8. In order to reduce, for the peasantry, exploitation through usury, the
government should issue explicit ordinances to ban exploitation through usury
and set interest rates below 20 percent per annum and 2 percent per month. It
should also ban the compounding of interest on the old debts owed by peasants. The Ministry of Peasant Affairs of the national government should
quickly devise means to relieve peasants of their sufferings caused by debts; it
should also immediately try to set up peasants' banks and make loans to them
at an annual interest rate of 5 percent.
9. In order to guard against landlords' and speculative businessmen's raising of food prices and to provide relief to peasants in the event of natural
disasters, the government should authorize district and township organs of
self-government to request the responsible agency of the [Ministry] of Peasant
Affairs to grant them the special power to administer the export of food and
keep certain quantities of food in reserve.
10. The national government should step up its preparations [to deal with]
the following issues to be raised at the next plenum of the Central Executive
Committee. (1) The payment of rent must be handled through township and
village organs of self-government; how can the government deduct land taxes
from the rent payment? (2) Creating xian governments based on a democratic
system. (3) Organizing an independent, democratic judiciary to solve the landrelated problems and other problems. (4) Concrete methods for solving the
land problem for poor peasants. The Plenum of the Central Executive Committee believes that the above measures constitute only the first step in the struggle for the liberation of the Chinese peasantry. In order for such a struggle to
expand its victories, we must rouse the peasants themselves to action and
receive the full support of the government.

The Plenary Meeting of the Central Executive Committee firmly believes in
the implementation of the above measures. It confidently thinks that, as the only

strong foundation for the national revolution, the tens of millions of Chinese
peasants will support our party, the national government, and the National Revolutionary Army, and will struggle together with us. The Plenum firmly believes
that this united front will certainly be able to liberate China from the oppression
of imperialism, destroy all warlords, and eliminate obstacles to the development
of agriculture. It will also deal with all the decadent phenomena in society, such
as unemployment and banditry. For if we cannot liberate the 300 million peasants or improve their lives, then China's industry and commerce can certainly
not be revived, and we will continue to be dependent on the imperialists. The
above reform plans are the only method for establishing a new social order. The
Plenum of the Central Executive Committee will certainly fight anyone who
obstructs or sabotages such a united front and the development of the peasant
movement, or anyone who obstructs the implementation of the revolutionary
policies of the national government to liberate the peasants and China as a
whole.
In addition, the Third Plenum of the Central Executive Committee takes the
following further decisions. (1) At the next plenum, the government should
provide a report on the results of the implementation of the above measures. (2)
We call on all members of our party to arise together and propagate this resolution so as to make all the peasants of China understand it; in every township,
village, military unit, and organization, they should use either printed materials
or the method of reading to illiterates, so that everyone may understand this
resolution.

--- Notes

1. This plenum, which met March 10-17, 1927, in Wuhan, was an important episode
in the breakdown of relations between Chiang Kaishek and the Left Guomindang. The key
posts occupied by Chiang as head of the party and of the national government were
abolished in favor of a collective leadership. Two Communist Party members became
ministers in the Wuhan government, and Mao played a significant political role, which is
documented in many of the texts translated below.


2. The texts of the Joint Session translated above do not include separate resolutions
dealing specifically with the peasant movement, but Articles 24 through 31 of the "Basic
Program" adopted on October 27, 1925, do provide guarantees to the peasants, from
standardizing the land tax and prohibiting usury to the right to establish peasant associations. In particular, Article 24 calls for the 25 percent reduction in rent stipulated, below,
in point 4 of this resolution.


3. At the session of the Third Plenum on the previous day, Mao had declared: "If the
property of the temples is not confiscated, it will be impossible to strike a forceful blow
against the clan system." (Nianpu 1, p. 187)


4. During the discussions on March 15, Mao had declared: "Local bullies and bad
gentry must be dealt with by revolutionary methods. There must be courts adapted to the
revolutionary situation. The best method for dealing with them is through direct action by
the peasants; peaceful methods cannot serve to overthrow the local bullies and bad gentry." (Nianpu, 1, p. 187).