Guomindang to play the host there. Second, the issue of the peasants. The
peasants want a revolution, Party [members] close to the peasants also want a
revolution, but the upper level of the Party is a different story. Before I
arrived in Changsha, I had no reason to oppose the Party's decision, which
sided entirely with the landlords. Even after arriving in Changsha, I was still
unable to answer this question. It was not until I had stayed in Hunan for
more than thirty days that I completely changed my attitude. I made a report
in Hunan expressing my opinion, and simultaneously also sent a report to the
Center.2 This report had its impact in Hunan, but it had no influence whatever
on the Center. The broad masses inside and outside the Party want revolution,
yet the Party's guidance is not revolutionary; there really is a hint of something counterrevolutionary about it. I have established these views under the
guidance of the peasants. Formerly, I thought the opinion of the leading
comrades was right, so I didn't really insist on my own views. Thus my
opinions, which they said were unreasonable, did not prevail. So the Party's
opinion went in the direction of Xu Kexiang.3 It was really strange that even
Tang's troops admitted that only eight households of military officers had
been destroyed; and yet our Party seemed to accept that no one knew how
many households had been destroyed. In sum, the influence of the masses
over the Party leadership was far too small in the past. Third, as regards
military affairs, we used to censure [Sun] Yatsen for engaging only in a
military movement, and we did just the opposite, not undertaking a military
movement, but exclusively a mass movement. Both Chiang [Kaishek] and
Tang [Shengzhi] rose by grasping the gun; we alone did not concern ourselves with this. At present, although we have paid some attention to it, we
still have no firm concept about it. The Autumn Harvest Uprising, for example, is simply impossible without military force.5 Our conference should attach great importance to this issue. The members of the Standing Committee
of the new Politburo should take a firmer stand and pay attention to this
issue. The failure in Hunan this time can be said to have resulted entirely
from pedantic and subjective mistakes. From now on, we should pay the greatest attention to military affairs. We must know that political power is obtained from the barrel of the gun.6 Fourth, the issue of organization. From now
on, higher authorities should listen attentively to reports from the lower levels.
Only then can the nonrevolutionary be transformed into the revolutionary.

2. The first of these was the celebrated "Hunan Peasant Report," intended primarily
for the Guomindang, which appears in Mao's Selected Works; the second, more forthright
assessment of the situation, prepared for the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, has only recently become accessible in Chinese and is translated for the first
time in Volume II of this edition, pp. 425-28.

3. I.e., in the direction of commanders troubled by the disorders and attacks on landlords brought about by the revolution. Regarding Xu Kexiang, the prime mover of the
"Horse Day" incident, see above, the note to the text of July 4, 1927.

4. The reference is to Tang Shengzhi.

5. Because he sought to make maximum use of the small number of troops under his
command when he led this uprising in Hunan a few weeks later, Mao would subsequently
be censured by the Party leadership for his "military deviationism."
6. Mao's enunciation of this axiom has long been thought to date from 1938, but in
fact he first put it forward in 1927. The Chinese formulation is slightly different, but the
essential idea is the same. Here the wording is: "Zhengquan shi you qiangganzi zhong
qude de." In November 1938, at the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, he put
forward the formula: "Qiangganzi limian chu zhengquan," which can be rendered "Political power grows (or comes) out of the barrel of a gun." (For the context, see the Selected
Works, Vol. II, pp. 224-25.)

Mao Zedong's Statement Regarding the
Resolution on the Struggles of the Peasants
(August 7, 1927)
1. A criterion must definitely be fixed for big and medium landlords. Otherwise, we will not know who is a big or medium landlord. In my opinion, we
could take fifty mu as the limit; above fifty mu, whether the land is fertile or
barren, it should all be confiscated.
2. The question of small landlords is the central problem of the land question.
The difficulty is that, if we do not confiscate the land of the small landlords, then
since there are many localities where there are no big landlords, the peasant
associations would have to cease their activity. Hence, if we wish basically to
abolish the landlord system, we must have a certain method for dealing with the
small landlords. At present we must resolve the small landlord question, for this
is the only way we can satisfy the people.
3. The problem of owner-peasants. The land rights of rich peasants and middle peasants are not the same. The peasants want to attack the rich peasants, so
we must adopt a clear orientation.
4. The bandit problem is an extraordinarily great problem. Because such
secret societies and bandits are uncommonly numerous, we must have tactics
[for dealing with them]. There are some comrades who hold that we can simply
use them; this is [Sun] Zhongshan's¹ method, which we should not follow. It
suffices that we carry through the agrarian revolution, and then we will certainly
be able to lead them. We must definitely regard them as our own brothers, and
not as strangers.2

This text has been translated from Baqi huiyi, p. 73. Unlike Mao's comments on
Lominadze's report, these remarks on the peasant problem do not appear in either of the
other volumes cited in the source note to the previous document.
1. Sun Yatsen.
2. Keren. The usual meaning is "guest," but here "stranger" seems more apt.
Hunan Is Important
(August 9, 1927)1
D:2 We have all read the report on the problem of Hunan (by Meyer³). From this
report we can draw three conclusions: (1) The plan for the insurrection by He Ye
of the Provincial Committee is erroneous; we should not organize a division in
Hunan to take Guangdong together with the military forces from Nanchang, but
should form a broad basis in Hunan, and extend it to include the whole province.
(2) The Provincial Committee is not strong, there is not a single worker or
peasant element, and it is the same with the C.Y.4 Judging by the way he talks,
the secretary wants to protect the interests of the small landlords; this secretary is
unsuitable, and the Provincial Committee should be reorganized. People close to
the masses must join the Provincial Committee and guide the work there, and
there should be five or six worker and peasant elements. (3) Their acceptance of
the International's decisions is insincere, so they do not have a firm attitude
toward the Party's position. At present, we should send capable comrades such
as Dongs to explain things in detail, and to support resolutely the views of the
[August 7] Emergency Conference.

Dong: To organize a division to go to Guangdong is wrong. All of us should not
look only at Guangdong; Hunan is also very important. The organization of the

This document has been translated from the extracts quoted in the article by Sun Gang in
Dangde wenxian, no. 1, 1988, cited in the source note to the first text in this volume.
Mao's own remarks are conveniently available in Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 1, p. 6,
but without Lominadze's introductory statement, which provides the context.
1. The text translated below is an extract from the record of a meeting of the Politburo
of the Central Committee held on this date.
2. Lominadze, the Comintern representative.
3. Meyer was the Soviet consul in Changsha, and concurrently a representative of the
International. His report was highly critical of the Hunan Provincial Committee.
4. The Communist Youth League.
5. Mao Zedong. As indicated above, in a note to the text of August 1, 1927, the Central
Committee decided on August 3 that a Southern Hunan Special Committee of four members, including Mao Zedong, should be set up right away, to direct operations there. (See
the plan for the Autumn Harvest Uprising in the four provinces of Hunan, Hubei,
Guangdong, and Jiangxi in Saich, Rise to Power, Doc. C.6, pp. 317-19.) Resolutions
adopted at the Politburo meeting of August 9 stipulated that Mao Zedong and Peng
Gongda were entrusted with the compilation of the list of the nine members of the new
Provincial Committee, of whom at least three must be workers or peasants. Peng Gongda was
appointed provincial party secretary. (See the letter of August 9, 1927, to the Hunan Provincial
Committee transmitting these decisions, in Saich, Rise to Power, Doc. C.7, pp. 319-21.)