Sun Ke,4 Tang Shengzhi,5 Zhang Fakui, 6 Peng Pai, Yi Lirong, Lu Chen, Xiao
Rengu, and Fang Zhimin as interim executive committee members to form the
provisional executive committee of the All-China Federation of Peasant Associations and to carry out its duties. The conference also appointed Deng Yanda head
of the Propaganda Department, Mao Zedong head of the Organization Department, and Peng Pai secretary general. The misery of the peasants in our country
is caused entirely by the aggression of international imperialism and the oppression of the domestic feudal classes. The liberation of the peasants represents the
success of the national revolution. That is why, with the progress of the forces of
the national revolution, the peasantry is also becoming organized. We all deeply
believe in this as an unvarying principle; we pledge ourselves to take a revolutionary stand and to lead the peasants of the whole country to struggle hard to
complete the national revolution. We humbly lay this telegram before you in the
hope of receiving your instruction regarding this final struggle against all imperialists and feudal classes.

The Provisional Executive Committee of the All-China Federation of Peasant
Associations (Official Seal)

4. On Sun Ke, see above the note to the "Basic Program" dated October 27, 1926. In
1926, he was regarded as a member of the Guomindang right, but having gone to Wuhan
with a delegation appointed by Chiang Kaishek, he threw in his lot with the left and
became one of the key figures in the Wuhan régime.
5. On Tang Shengzhi, see above, the note to Mao's Hunan Peasant Report.
6. Zhang Fakui (1896–1980), zi Xianghua, was a native of Guangdong. After obtaining a military education, he rose steadily in rank in the forces supporting Sun Yatsen. In
1926, as a divisional commander, he distinguished himself in the Northern Expedition. In
the summer of 1927, he led Wuhan's Second Front Army in a campaign against Chiang
Kaishek. At that time he was regarded as a Communist sympathizer, but when the Nanchang Uprising took place on August 1, 1927, he attacked the rebels, retreating thereafter
to Guangzhou.
7. Regarding Peng Pai, see above, the note to Mao's "Analysis of All the Classes
among the Chinese Peasantry" of January 1, 1926. Peng had joined both the Chinese
Communist Party and the Guomindang in 1924, and had served as secretary of the Peasant
Department of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee. Thereafter, he returned to
Haifeng to continue his work among the peasants, and published in 1926 the "Report on
the Peasant Movement in Haifeng." In March 1927, he came to Wuhan, where he became,
as indicated below, the secretary-general of the All-China Peasant Association, and participated in the Fifth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. He was arrested and executed in Shanghai in 1929.
8. Regarding Yi Lirong, see above, the note to Mao's letter of January 28, 1921, to
Peng Huang.

Remarks at the First Enlarged Meeting of the
Land Committee1
(April 19, 1927)

I

The question of political power is merely a formal question. It will be sufficient to
carry out effectively the resolutions of our party, and we will be able to extend the
organization of the peasant associations, and then there will be no problem about the
political power of the peasants. I have some views about the land question. In my
opinion, there should be a set of principles regarding this question, to wit:

1. The significance of resolving the land question. When we are certain of
this significance, we should propagate it energetically.
2. How shall we resolve the land question? That is to say, what should be the
criteria for confiscating the land, and how should it be distributed? These
points are the crux of the question.
3. The [relation] between the political power of the peasants and the land
question, that is to say, what organ should be used to carry out confiscation and distribution.
4. Once the land has been confiscated and the tiller has his land,2 should
buying and selling be prohibited? Thus the problem of prohibiting buying
and selling the land and of the nationalization of the land arises.
5. The problem of the land tax, or how to collect the land tax. This question is
also extremely complicated.

II

The significance of the solution of the land problem includes the following
points: (1) Bring about the liberation of the peasantry. The elimination of exploi-

We have translated these remarks from Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 1, pp. 42-45, where the
text is followed by the indication "based on the record of the First Enlarged Meeting of the
Guomindang Central Land Committee."
1. The Land Committee had been established by the Standing Committee of the Central Executive Committee at its Fifth Enlarged Session on April 2, 1927. The other members, apart from Mao, were Deng Yanda, Xu Qian, Gu Mengyu, and Tan Pingshan. Its
purpose was to be "deciding on measures for giving land to the peasants," and "creating a
revolutionary phenomenon throughout the countryside, so as to permit the subsequent
overthrow of the feudal system." (Nianpu 1, p. 191)
2. Gengzhe you qi tianle in other words, when Sun's slogan "Land to the tiller" has
been carried out.


tation and oppression by the landlords and all oppressing classes is truly the main
significance of the subject under discussion. (2) If the land question is not resolved, the economically backward countries will not be able to increase their
productive force, will be unable to resolve the problem of the misery of the
peasants' lives, and will be unable to improve the land. According to the [agrarian] survey of the Russian comrades,³ the productive capacity of our country's
land is constantly falling, and the productive forces of the whole country have
already encountered a great crisis. If this crisis is not resolved, an extremely
great famine will undoubtedly arise. If the land question is not resolved, the
peasants will be incapable of improving the land, and production will certainly
continue to decline. Thus, the second significance lies in increasing production.
(3) Safeguarding the revolution. Although the revolutionary forces are developing at present, they have also reached a crisis, and if in future no fresh troops
arrive, we will certainly be defeated. If we wish to increase the new forces to
safeguard the revolution, it cannot be done without solving the land question.
The reason for this is that, once the land question has been resolved, the problems of finance and of soldiers can both be resolved. Whether or not soldiers can
continue indefinitely to participate in the revolution will also be determined by
the solution of the land question, because if the peasants want to protect their
land, they will be obliged to fight bravely. These three points represent the great
significance of resolving the land question.

IV

I strongly approve of the chairman's ideas.⁴

In my opinion, the Ministry of Peasant Affairs of the National Government
should establish a committee on rural self-government to deal exclusively with
the matter of organs of rural self-government. As for the political power of the
peasants, there are two stages: (1) The period of the peasant associations. At the
time of revolution in the countryside, political power is concentrated in the
peasant associations. (2) Once the revolution is over, rural governments should
come under a national government system. Originally, the peasant associations
and the government belong to different systems, and in the exercise of this kind
of peasant political power each province needs a few core xian as models. Hunan
has already proclaimed regulations regarding district, township, and village selfgovernment,⁵ Hubei may also start, so Guangdong is an exception. In these
articles, the most important thing is to lay down what sort of people are not
permitted to participate in the organs of self-government. At present, we must
recognize the political power of the peasants and develop it.

V

1. The problem of the political power of the peasants may constitute a separate problem.

2. The matter of reinforcing the organs for land distribution should be added
to the above principles for resolving the land question.

III

Now we can add the following three points regarding the significance of resolving the land question: (4) Eliminate the feudal system, (5) Promote China's
industrialization, (6) Raise the cultural level.

3. The reference is to a survey carried out in Guangdong in 1926 by two experts, M.
Volin and E. Yolk, who were attached to the mission of Soviet advisers. The report
containing their results ran to nearly 1,000 pages. It was indicated by Vera Vishnyakova-Akimova in her memoirs (see the translation by Steven Levine under the title Two Years in
Revolutionary China 1925-1927 [Harvard University Press, 1971], p. 222) that this work
was destroyed by the rightists in 1927. In fact, it survived, and was one of the sources
used by Karl August Wittfogel in writing his major work, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft
Chinas (Leipzig: Hirschfeld, 1931). According to Wittfogel (p. xi of the preface), a very
few copies of this document were taken safely back to Moscow after the break between the
Communists and the Guomindang. It is manifestly still available there, for the Soviet
China specialist L. P. Delyusin refers to it in his book Agrarno-krestiyanskii Vopros v
Politike KPK (1921-1928) (The peasant and agrarian question in the politics of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921-1928) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Nauka," 1972). In his bibliography, he lists it among "foreign-language" documentary sources, as follows: The Peasant
Movement in Kwangtung (Materials on the Agrarian Problem in China). Prepared by M.
Volin and E. Yolk. Under the editorship and with a preface by M. Borodin. Part 2,
Collection of materials. Canton: Canton Gazette Publishing Co., 1927.

4. The reference is to remarks by the chairman of the meeting, Deng Yanda, who had
said, "The problem of the political power of the peasants should be viewed through the
eyes of those at the lower levels. (1) Negatively, the feudal forces must be annihilated. (2)
Positively, organs of peasant self-government should be created. But all self-government
organs at the level of the township, district, or xian should have the guarantee of peasant
armed forces. Hence, it is crucially important to resolve the problem of arms for the
peasants. The first step should be to discuss a law regarding the organization of organs of
self-government at the township, district, and xian levels. The second step should be to
get arms for the peasants; the revolutionary party and the revolutionary government must
find a way to get arms for the peasants. We should adopt a resolution requesting the
Central Committee to hand over 5 or 10 percent of the output of the armaments factories
to the peasants. The third step is for the Ministry of Peasant Affairs, on the basis of the
resolutions, to adopt and promulgate a decree regarding the organization of township,
district, and xian self-government." See Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 1, p. 45.

5. The reference is to the "Circular regarding how to realize democratic political
power in the villages" and the "Regulations regarding District and Township Self-Government in Hunan" appended to this document, adopted on February 16, 1927. (Mao Zedong
wenji, Vol. 1, p. 45.)