LETTER FROM HUNAN PROVINCIAL COMMITTEE

30 August 1927

[Text] Brother X X:

Your letter of Character Hsiang No 5 has been received. Concerning the two points of error mentioned therein, what you have said is not in keeping with either fact or theory. We wish, therefore, to reply to you as follows:

(1) From the standpoint of the revolutionary significance as a whole, to capture Changsha and to stage the Autumn Harvest uprising are both for the purpose of promoting agrarian revolution. The Changsha uprising and the Autumn Harvest uprising are the same thing. Whereas the Changsha uprising serves as the starting point of the Autumn Harvest uprising, the Autumn Harvest uprising is to unleash an agrarian revolution in order to seize political power. In our plan to capture Changsha, the main fighters are workers and peasants. The purpose of transferring the two X and X regiments to attack Changsha is to supplement the insufficiency in strength of the workers and peasants. They are not the main force, but are deployed to serve as a cover for the development of the uprising, and so they are not the only important element of the uprising. Your committee has deemed that this is a military adventure here, ordering that the plan for the Changsha uprising be carried out. This shows your ignorance about the conditions here, and it is a contradictory policy to which no attention is paid to military affairs, but in the meantime, it calls for an armed uprising on the part of the masses.

(2) You have said that we have been paying attention here only to our work in Changsha, and neglected the other places. This is not true. It is true that we have been amiss in reporting to you the situation in other places where considerable preparations have been made (please see the plan on the uprising in central Hunan). In regard to the problem of our work in southern Hunan, we must also explain that making Changsha the starting point of the uprising does not mean that we have given up southern Hunan. The reason why we have not made Heng-yang the second starting point is because our strength is only sufficient to stage uprisings in central Hunan. If there should be uprisings in the various counties, our strength will be so diffused that it will be impossible to implement the plan of uprising

in central Hunan. That is why we decided against making Heng-yang the second starting point. Nonetheless, where plans for uprising have been made and preparations are underway in the various counties in southern Hunan, we have already issued orders to them to carry out the uprising effectively. As soon as the Changsha uprising begins, it will be unleashed simultaneously in the other counties. 30 August

CHUNG-YANG TUNG-PAO No 5, 20 September 1927.