Outline for the Movement in Southern Hunan[1]

(August 1927)

1. The special movement in southern Hunan shall take Rucheng County as its center, and from this center proceed to occupy four or five counties such as Guidong, Yizhang, and Chenzhou, forming a political situation. A government-like revolutionary command organ shall be organized to carry out the agrarian revolution, confront the Tang government[2] in Changsha, and establish liaison with the anti-Tang forces in western Hunan. The functions of this southern Hunan government shall be threefold:

(a) To render Tang’s already unstable rule in Hunan even more unstable, and to provoke rapid divisions among Tang’s subordinates.

(b) To serve as the vanguard force for the peasant insurrection throughout the province.

(c) To create a center of revolutionary strength, so as to achieve the objective of overthrowing the Tang government.

2. In terms of military strength:

(a) Request the Central Committee to instruct Comrade Peng Pai[3] not to transfer elsewhere the Guangdong Peasant Army currently in Rucheng.

[1] This is a plan for launching armed struggle in southern Hunan drafted by Mao Zedong and discussed and approved at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Provisional Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Prior to this, in his "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" written in March 1927, Mao Zedong had proposed "overthrowing the armed forces of the landlords and establishing armed forces of the peasants," a new type of armed force that made the local tyrants and evil gentry tremble, and which should be vigorously popularized. On July 4, at an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee held in Hankou to discuss how to develop and preserve peasant armed forces, Mao Zedong further proposed two lines: "(1) going up to the mountains, (2) throwing themselves into the army. Going up to the mountains can create a foundation for military power."

[2] The Tang government refers to the Kuomintang Hunan Provincial Government, with Tang Shengzhi as the provincial government chairman.

[3] Peng Pai, member of the CPC Central Committee, formerly vice-chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Peasant Association, and at that time a member of the CPC Front Enemy Committee of the Nanchang Uprising.

(b) One thousand men of the Liuyang-Pingjiang Army[1] shall proceed immediately to Rucheng under the command of Guo Liang.[2]

(c) One regiment from the Jiangxi Revolutionary Army shall be transferred to Rucheng.

The total strength of the above three components shall be approximately one division, with one regiment of the Revolutionary Army as the core, ensuring at least the certainty of occupying more than five counties.

3. Southern Hunan shall be under the command of the revolutionary leading organ in Jiangxi. When the revolutionary Guangdong government is established, it shall then be under the command of the Guangdong government and shall supply its needs. The Central Committee should order the Jiangxi side to carry out this plan.

4. The Special Committee of the Party for Southern Hunan shall be under the command of the Hunan Provincial Committee, and shall be empowered to exercise its functions and powers independently when communications are obstructed.

[1] Refers to the peasant armed forces from Liuyang and Pingjiang in Hunan.
[2] Guo Liang, after the Ma Incident in 1927, served as acting secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, and together with Liu Zhixun and others, planned and mobilized peasant armies from counties near Changsha to attack Changsha.