Resolutions of the Sixth Congress of Party
Representatives from the Fourth Red Army
(December 6, 1928)

I) Minutes of the Congress:

Six months of hard struggles have gone by since the Fifth Congress of the Fourth
Army, which was held in May of this year in Ninggang New City. The Preparatory Meeting for the Sixth Congress took place on November 13. The congress
met officially on November 14 and adjourned on the 15th. Seventy-nine representatives were present. All the army branches were represented except for one
battalion of the Thirty-second Regiment, which was stationed at Yongxin and
could not send its delegation in time. The delegations had brought with them
over thirty motions. After the initial sorting of these motions, they were put into
seventeen categories. During the congress, we discussed various important political, military, and party-related questions. In particular, a long time was devoted
to the discussion of the nature of the Chinese revolution. This was a characteristic of the Sixth Congress. As far as the various motions are concerned, since all
the representatives had important responsibilities and needed to get back to their
posts as soon as possible, we could not go over each of them during the congress.
In the end, we decided that they would be discussed and executed by the new
Army Committee. In the election of this committee, a list of forty-nine candidates was initially put forward by the congress presidium, and of these twentythree were selected by the congress as members of the Sixth Army Committee.
Their task was to form an Executive Committee and to carry out all the work.
The congress was adjourned on the 15th. Since all the resolutions of this congress have an extremely important bearing on the future of the Red Army, and on
the development of the border area, they are recorded briefly below.

II) Political Resolutions:
Editor, New City
December 1928

1) On the Nature of the Chinese Revolution. In accordance with the February
resolution of the International on the Chinese revolution, we consider that the

Our source for this document is Jingganshan geming genjudi, vol. 1, pp. 199-204. The
same text appears in Jinggangshande wuzhuang geju, pp. 167-71, and is reproduced in
Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 2, pp. 311-18, except that the date at the end is December 16
instead of December 6.
Chinese revolution is still in the bourgeois-democratic phase.¹ The leader of this
revolution is the proletariat; as regards external affairs,² its content consists in
overthrowing the warlords and completing the agrarian revolution, in order to
demolish the relations of feudal exploitation and bring democracy and freedom
to the oppressed masses of China. Only then can there be a socialist future for
the Chinese revolution. If we deny this democratic phase of the revolution,
thinking that the Chinese revolution has already entered the phase of socialist
revolution, this misunderstanding will be extremely harmful to the Chinese revolution. The correctness of this view of the International has been demonstrated in
the course of our past struggles. Ever since the Guangzhou uprising,³ the widespread arson and random killing which have taken place everywhere display a
total incomprehension of the nature of the Chinese revolution. The Fourth Red
Army in . . . bitter experience. Our action from now on will be to lead the
worker-peasant-soldier masses and the petty bourgeoisie, to enlarge the movement for democratic revolution, to deepen the agrarian revolution, and to overthrow the extremely reactionary situation prevailing at present. The Red Army
must proclaim a concrete political program for the cities and act forcefully to
correct the former policy of unrestricted confiscation of military supplies.

2) The World Situation. Ever since the revival of German and Austrian capitalism, the Franco-British naval agreement, the American war treaties, Italy's
assertion of its rights over the Mediterranean Sea, Japan's invasion of China,
America's conclusion of a unilateral treaty with China, and so on, the conflicts
within international imperialism have intensified day by day. This is an opportune moment for a forward surge of the world revolution!

3) The Domestic Situation. Recently the various factions of warlords within
the Guomindang have formed a united government. On the surface, they advocate perpetual peace, but in reality, it is the dictatorship of Chiang Kaishek's
faction trying to bring others together to gain some temporary peace. From the
standpoints of military-political, financial, and party affairs, there are extremely
complicated rivalries within the Guomindang. The weakness of this "united gov-

1. The first sentence of the "Resolution on the Chinese Question" adopted by the
Ninth Plenum of the Executive Committee of Comintern on February 25, 1928, reads:
"The current period of the Chinese revolution is a period of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution...." The term for "democratic" used in the official Chinese translation of this
resolution is Sun Yatsen's minquan, which Mao consistently employed at this time. See
Central Committee Documents (1928), pp. 757-63.
2. The only available text reads here dui wai, or "toward the outside." The editors of
the Tokyo edition have queried this, and it is obviously an error. Presumably it should
read dui nei, or "as regards internal affairs." The first paragraph of the Comintern resolution, which Mao and his comrades take as their text, says that "in the economic domain,
the democratic revolution has not yet been completed (the agrarian revolution and the
elimination of feudal relations)...."
3. I.e., the Canton or Guangzhou Commune of December 1927, already mentioned
several times in earlier texts.

ernment" can be seen in particular from the bandit disasters in the north and the
worker-peasant-soldier insurrections in the south. China is a semicolony, and her
ruler is international imperialism. Because international imperialism is not
united, the warlord government under its protection is naturally coming apart.
Therefore the relative tranquillity of China's current political situation is merely
the lull before a large-scale, complicated war among the warlords.
4) The Birth and Existence of the Soviet Government. One of the characteristics of the Chinese revolution is that a soviet régime can be brought forth in
China under White rule, and the situation permits it to survive. Because China is
a semicolony, and the ruling class of a semicolony is basically split and cannot
be unified, a soviet régime can be born and develop in the midst of these divisions. So long as these splits within the ruling class continue, the soviet régime
can continue to exist. The truth of this statement is attested by the emergence of
the soviets everywhere during the past year. The independent régime in the
border area during the past year also demonstrates that in order for a soviet
régime to survive, the following four conditions must be fulfilled: (1) A Communist
Party capable of resolute struggle; (2) large and organized masses of workers and
peasants; (3) relatively strong and well-armed Red Army and Red Guard Units; and
(4) a strategic terrain which enables a smaller force to defeat a larger one.
5) Our Immediate Political Tasks. Within the territory of China, Hunan and
Jiangxi have gone through extremely turbulent revolutionary currents in the past,
and therefore there is a relatively deep foundation among the masses. The independent régimes in the border area are, moreover, destined to influence the
revolutionary movement in these two provinces. Thus the task of the Party in the
Fourth Red Army is to establish a Bolshevik Party, to lead the masses in expanding the movement for the democratic revolution, to deepen the agrarian revolution in the areas the Red Army has entered, and to carry out an effort everywhere
to accelerate the crumbling of the ruling class.

III) Resolutions Concerning Party Affairs:

1) It is not appropriate for Party organizations at all levels in the Red Army to
deal openly with matters of all kinds. Efforts should be made to restore conditions of secrecy. Party organs can be established within the Soldiers' Committees
at all levels. Responsible Party comrades should concurrently be staff members
of the Soldiers' Committees. Outwardly the power of the Soldiers' Committees
should be strengthened, and a Party body should be established to exercise
leadership over them. Military organs should also be strengthened, so they will
have the capacity to exercise the Party's revolutionary leadership over military
affairs. We need to correct the previous mistake of direct intervention by the
Party organization in day-to-day affairs and of regarding the military organs and
Soldiers' Committees as nothing but empty shells.
2) The Fifth Army Committee decided to strengthen each regimental committee. Since the Army Committee is responsible only for political supervision, it
has no understanding of the conditions at lower levels. The various regimental
committees also exercise independent authority, so it is getting harder and harder
to maintain coordination. From now on, we should strengthen the Army Committee, which should frequently check on the work of the branches.
3) Since the Red Army has experienced large-scale warfare, many cadres of
the Party Committees have been almost wiped out by casualties. From now on,
the Army Committee must hold periodic training programs to prepare people for
Party work.
4) We must recruit Party members among the combat soldiers. The proportion should be at least one-half.
5) The Company Branch Executive Committee should be called the Company Branch Committee. The number of committee members should be increased so that a majority of comrades may take part in the supervisory work.
We should effectively make the Company Branch Committees the core of the
Red Army. The number of the committee members should be five to seven.
6) Since the Company Branch Committees are the core of the Party's work in
the Red Army, the Party representatives should be in charge of this core and, at the
same time, assume as their open task the planning and supervision of political work.
In reality, the current system of Party representatives should not be abolished.

IV) Military Resolutions:

1) Establishing Military Bases. (a) Build strong fortifications in the big and
small Five Wells districts; (b) Accumulate food supplies in the bases; and
(c) build hospitals, barracks, and Red Army memorial halls.
2) The Military Establishment. Each company is given seventy-five long-barreled guns. There should be four companies in a battalion. Each regiment should
have a special task company which will be allotted the same number of long-barreled guns as an infantry company. Each regiment may have machine-gun companies and mortar companies. Each of these companies may have forty
long-barreled guns. The regiment dispatch platoon may be allotted eight longbarreled guns and the battalion headquarters, four. The army headquarters may
establish special task battalions, which will be organized the same way as the
regular battalions.
3) All the guns and bullets belong to the army headquarters. The regiments,
battalions, and companies may not acquire them at will.
4) Each company may be allotted no more than six handguns; each battalion,
no more than three; each regiment, no more than five; and the army headquarters, no more than six.
5) The tactics of the Red Army are: when encountering a small enemy force,
eliminate it quickly with our main forces. When encountering a large enemy
force, make use of the masses to surround them on all sides, tire them out, and