Couplet for the Suichuan Public Trial of Local Tyrants and Evil Gentry Mass Meeting[1]

(January 1928)

In years past you exploited workers and peasants, fine upon fine, profit bred from profit;
Today I execute the local tyrants and evil gentry[2], fear or not, blade added upon blade.

[1] On January 5, 1928, Mao Zedong led the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army to capture Suichuan County Town in Jiangxi. On January 24, a mass meeting was convened to establish the county workers’, peasants’, and soldiers’ government, at which the local tyrant and evil gentry Guo Weijian was publicly tried and given the death penalty. Mao Zedong spoke at the meeting and personally wrote this couplet for it. Suichuan, a county name, is in the southwestern part of Jiangxi Province, on the upper reaches of the Suichuan River, a tributary of the Gan River, adjacent to Hunan Province.

[2] Tu lie, abbreviation for tuhao lieshen (local tyrants and evil gentry).

Mao Zedong led the insurrectionary troops to Jinggangshan, making every effort to win over, unite with, and reform the two armed forces of Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo. The picture shows Yuan Wencai (left) and Wang Zuo.

In February 1928, Mao Zedong led the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army to win the first victory in the Jinggangshan struggle, capturing the new town of Ninggang County Town and smashing the Kuomintang army’s first “encirclement and suppression” campaign against Jinggangshan. The picture is an oil painting titled "Great Victory at the New Town."


Leg wraps given by Mao Zedong to Yuan Wencai for riding horses.

"Wang Zuo Welcomes the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army" (Chinese painting)