(1) The progress of the peasant movement in recent years has already shown that the Chinese revolution has entered a new stage—the stage of the agrarian revolution. The agrarian revolution is but a process, and the development of this process requires a democratic regime of workers, peasants, and the petty bourgeoisie under the leadership of the proletariat, as well as armed forces of workers and peasants. This revolution has currently suffered a setback in China for the following reasons: (1) The leadership of the proletariat is not yet strong enough; in other words, the subjective organizational capacity of the proletariat is still unable to lead the revolutionary alliance of workers, peasants, and the petty bourgeoisie. (2) The armed forces of workers and peasants have not been built. (3) Our Party has committed errors through its wavering and indecisive policies. (4) The Wuhan Central Committee of the Kuomintang, the National Government, and the so-called revolutionary army, by their class nature, are representatives of the landlord class and cannot assume a new historical mission—the agrarian revolution. They have moved from restricting the worker and peasant movements to opposing and slaughtering workers and peasants, descending into full-blown counter-revolution. Such betrayal is a historical inevitability, proving that the deepening of the revolution is by no means surprising. Our Party’s duty is only to resolutely struggle against this new counter-revolution, gather all revolutionary forces, and unfold this new stage of the revolution—the agrarian revolution. This is the current objective situation of the revolution, which demands a response from us in terms of a new strategy.

(1) At present, peasants all over the country are gasping for breath under the rule of both old and new warlords. The burdens of more than a decade of wars among old and new warlords and the aggression of imperialist economies have largely fallen on the impoverished peasants. In the north, the heavy weight of exorbitant taxes and levies has already forced most peasants to abandon their land, unable to earn a living. In the southern provinces, the peasants’ suffering is no different from that in the north, and the few freedoms they gained through repeated struggles have been completely stripped away once more. Whether in the north or the south, the majority of excessively oppressed impoverished peasants (tenant peasants, semi-owner peasants, hired peasants, unemployed peasants, and most owner peasants) have already awakened and are rising up everywhere to struggle against their enemies. Especially in the south, since the massacres carried out by Li Jishen and Tang Shengzhi, the peasants’ resistance and struggle have become even more heroic and resolute. At the same time, due to their mutual conflicts and internal contradictions, the old and new warlords are not only unable to establish a unified reactionary regime, but are instead rapidly collapsing one after another. Therefore, although the revolutionary tide nationwide appears to be at a temporary low point on the surface, in reality, it continues to rise. The current reactionary situation is merely a reaction to class conflicts as the revolution shifts to the stage of resolving the land problem. Only by resolutely taking a stand for the agrarian revolution can our Party lead this revolutionary tide forward. How can we develop the tide of the agrarian revolution? This can only be achieved by swiftly recognizing the objective situation, seizing every opportunity, putting forward appropriate slogans, and leading the broad masses in continuous, unrelenting struggle. At this time, slogans such as “Refuse to pay exorbitant taxes and levies,” “Refuse to pay grain taxes and money in advance,” “Reduce rent by 25%,” “Abolish usury,” “Confiscate the land of big landlords, local bullies, evil gentry, and counter-revolutionaries,” “Confiscate land held by ancestral halls, temples, and all public land,” “Realize land-to-the-tiller,” “Overthrow corrupt officials and evil bureaucrats,” “Overthrow local bullies and evil gentry,” “Overthrow old and new warlords,” “Realize revolutionary civil rights,” “Realize village power under peasant associations,” “Popularly elect county governments,” “Disarm counter-revolutionaries,” “Restore peasant associations,” “Implement arming of the peasants,” and “Peasants have freedom of assembly, association, speech, publication, and resistance to rent and taxes” should serve as the overall driving force for developing the agrarian revolution.

(3) In northern provinces such as Zhili, Shandong, Shanxi, and Henan, owner peasants and semi-owner peasants form the majority. They suffer under heavy taxes and levies, growing increasingly bankrupt, and some become bandits or flee to other provinces. Here, we must center on owner peasants, poor peasants, tenant peasants, and hired peasants, uniting all impoverished rural people and small landlords to form a fighting alliance, resisting all exorbitant taxes and levies, as well as the pre-collection of grain taxes and money, resisting all wartime requisitions, and implementing a 15% rent reduction. At the same time, through the development of such struggles, we will move to seize village political power, capture arms, and even confiscate the land of evil gentry, big landlords, counter-revolutionaries, and all ancestral halls and temples, distributing it without compensation to peasants and tenants. In southern provinces such as Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Guangdong, tenant peasants form the majority, followed by owner peasants and semi-owner peasants. Tenant peasants suffer exploitation through heavy rents imposed by landlords, while owner peasants and small landlords endure extremely heavy burdens from warlord taxes and levies. We should immediately, under the slogans of implementing a 15% rent reduction, resisting exorbitant taxes and levies, and refusing to pay grain taxes and money in advance, carry out strikes against rents and taxes. This will serve on the one hand to expose the hypocritical masks of rent and tax reductions by the Wuhan and Nanjing governments, and on the other hand, with tenant peasants, owner peasants, and poor peasants at the core, unite all impoverished rural people and even small landlords to severely strike at local bullies, evil gentry, corrupt officials, and evil bureaucrats, seizing village political power and arms under peasant associations, and even confiscating the land of evil gentry, big landlords, counter-revolutionaries, and all ancestral halls and temples, so as to launch the agrarian revolution. These are the slogans we must now use with full force to propagate, gather the strength of the peasant masses, and realize. Wherever there is a struggle against usury exceeding 20% annual interest, it must be thoroughly carried out, as this is a common demand of all oppressed people.

(4) The agrarian revolution is only a process, and the struggle for political power is the main characteristic of this process. Only through the struggle to seize political power can the feudal landlord’s rule in the countryside be overthrown, can the land problem be brought to an explosive resolution, and can the organ of power be given to resolve it. In southern provinces such as Guangdong and Hunan, although the main feature of the peasant movement has already advanced to confiscating the land of big landlords, in reality, if the peasants have not seized political power, simply resolving the land problem is impossible. Based on the experience of Hunan and Guangdong, this analysis is entirely correct. The so-called struggle for political power means establishing the revolutionary civil rights of the peasants, in other words, the establishment of peasant association power. In the history of the Chinese peasant movement, peasant associations are no longer merely professional organizations, but rural political alliances with impoverished peasants as the backbone. This is because peasant associations, in fact, not only unite ordinary peasants (whether farming or unemployed) but also include handicraft workers, primary school teachers, and small merchants; even some small landlords who have broken away from the influence of big landlords and sympathize with the peasant associations have been united within them. Therefore, at present, peasant associations are the revolutionary political alliance of impoverished peasants and other petty bourgeoisie in the countryside—peasant association power. This is a correct form of rural political power and must begin to be realized in various places.

(5) Based on the experience of the peasant movement in Hunan and Hubei, it should be pointed out that special attention must be paid to several points regarding the organization of peasant associations: (1) In the peasant movement of each province, we must concentrate our human and financial resources on regions of key political, military, or transportation importance, in order to establish a central foundation for leading the movement across the whole province. It is better to seek depth in these regions and temporarily slow expansion than to merely seek expansion while neglecting the foundational work at the center. (2) Since peasant associations unite ordinary peasant masses, handicraft workers, primary school teachers, and small merchants, and under certain conditions even include small landlords, the composition of the leading organs of peasant associations at all levels deserves our attention. Generally, small landlords should not be absorbed into the leading organs. Moreover, within the executive committees at the district and sub-district levels, tenant peasants, owner peasants, poor peasants, and unemployed peasants should each account for at least one-fifth of the seats. In district executive committees, the election of primary school teachers is necessary. (3) All levels of peasant associations should establish women’s departments and youth departments. Rural children’s movements and children’s organizations shall be entirely under the direction of the youth departments of the peasant associations. Peasant women shall all join the peasant associations and shall not organize separate women’s groups.

(6) The struggle for peasant association power and the agrarian revolution must be safeguarded by revolutionary armed force in order to ensure victory. However, at present, the so-called revolutionary army is actually under the leadership of reactionary officers representing the landlord class, slaughtering peasants everywhere. Armed conflict has already become an extremely common phenomenon in the peasant movement. Therefore, at this stage, the peasant movement is indeed the most serious and urgent issue. If every peasant movement activist fails to pay twelve parts of attention to this problem and seeks to provide a correct response, it is tantamount to failing to prepare for the victory of the peasant revolution. Party branches in each locality should use various methods to have peasants receive military training and obtain arms. Several broad methods are now outlined as follows: (1) Use various means to seize the arms of the landlord class and all counter-revolutionary factions to arm the peasants. (2) Brave and trained members of peasant associations shall organize themselves to enlist in the army to receive military training, and use various methods at all times to disrupt its organization and capture its arms. (3) For landlord-class armed forces such as militia bureaus and defense corps, when it is not possible to immediately seize their arms, adopt the above method. (4) At present, peasant armed forces have no possibility of openly existing under names such as “peasant self-defense armies” or “peasant armies”; they can only exist under the following three forms: A. Under legal names such as “household defense corps,” “defense corps,” or “village leagues”; B. Dispersed in peacetime, secretly trained, and assembled when conflicts arise; C. When neither form is possible, they may “take to the hills.” (5) In the north, among armed groups such as the Red Spears and Big Sword Societies, the Party should send appropriate comrades to penetrate their lower ranks, lead them to struggle for their own interests to gain their trust, and let them gradually break away from reactionary leaders to become revolutionary armed forces. It must not, from the very outset, attack their reactionary leaders or propose changing their organizational forms or eradicating superstitions; such mechanical and rash methods cannot win the support of the masses. At the same time, the past practice of only connecting with their leaders or using the prestige of military leaders for mobilization was also ineffective. In the south, bandit groups under slogans like “rob the rich to aid the poor” have, amid the high tide of the peasant revolution, also adopted slogans like “overthrow local bullies and evil gentry” and “overthrow corrupt officials and evil bureaucrats,” while their actions have also brought them closer to peasant associations, even uniting them under such associations. Originally, most of them are unemployed peasants or peasants on the verge of bankruptcy; their economic slogan “rob the rich to aid the poor” is close to “confiscate the land of big landlords.” They are naturally the enemies of the landlord class and opponents of urban reactionary armies (so long as they have not been sold out by their reactionary leaders). If they can be led onto the correct revolutionary track, they can certainly become powerful helpers in the agrarian revolution. However, their life and environment are exceptionally harsh; their leaders often carry the nature of would-be warlords. Therefore, they do not receive correct political leadership to embark on the formal path of revolution and struggle for definite goals; instead, they take “looting homes and plundering houses” as their habitual way of life, with their actions and thoughts entirely shifting with their leaders. Thus, we must understand both the positive role of bandit groups in the peasant revolution and their potential to turn reactionary. Our aim is to enhance their revolutionary character and revolutionary training so that, under the leadership of peasant associations, they become powerful helpers in the agrarian revolution. The methods are generally the same as above.

(7) In the past, the Party’s organization among the peasants was unable to adequately fulfill its leadership responsibilities. In many places, although there were struggles involving hundreds of thousands or even millions of peasant masses, it was often only a few comrades carrying out activities there, while the Party’s organization failed to perform its leadership role. In some places, although there were Party organizations, they did not penetrate deeply into the masses (only present at district associations but not reaching village associations), or they existed but had no effect, or those in charge of the peasant movement ignored the collective leadership of the Party and were accustomed to individual activities. Therefore, in all our Party’s work in the rural areas, there is a sense that “when people remain, policies flourish; when people leave, policies wither.” Since the Party could not fulfill its proactive organizational responsibilities in ordinary times, naturally it is even less likely to become the sole core leading the masses in struggle. If our Party’s leadership can be correctly established among the peasants, then, first, Party branches must be able to penetrate deeply into the village peasant associations and truly become the core of mass struggle. Second, the Party’s guidance to the peasants must go through Party caucuses (correcting the past errors involving individual leaders), and Party caucuses must absolutely obey the Party’s guidance. Third, the peasant departments of provincial Party branches must be firmly established, drafting a one- or two-month plan for the peasant movement of each province, supervising and urging Party branches at all levels to earnestly implement it.