Manifesto of the Communist Party*
(January 1929)

The Chinese revolution is still at the stage of the civil rights revolution. The civil rights revolution aims to overthrow the two greatest enemies: foreign imperialism and the domestic landlord class. China has suffered decades of aggression from imperialist countries such as Britain, the United States, France, and Japan. They have brought foreign goods into China and shipped Chinese agricultural products abroad, causing great losses to Chinese peasants. They have also opened factories to exploit Chinese workers, established banks to absorb Chinese capital, controlled customs to strangle China’s lifelines, set up churches to cultivate their running dogs, and used concessions as bases. Their warships are stationed at key coastal and river ports such as Shanghai, Hankou, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, while their armies are garrisoned in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and other places, effectively turning China into their colony. Under such imperialist oppression, China’s hundreds of millions of workers, peasants, soldiers, and petty bourgeoisie have no choice but to rise up and resist, and the Communist Party must stand at the forefront of the people and fight bravely. However, the Kuomintang, which represents the gentry and bourgeoisie, betrayed the revolution halfway. Not only did it abandon the slogan of overthrowing imperialism, but it also colluded with imperialism, selling out the country and fawning on foreign powers, just like Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang. Since the bourgeois Kuomintang has become counterrevolutionary, the workers, peasants, soldiers, and petty bourgeoisie must shoulder the responsibility of overthrowing imperialism. Only after imperialism is overthrown can the nation be unified, industry develop, and the entire Chinese nation achieve liberation. This is the first responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party. China’s current land system is a semi-feudal one, where peasants are exploited by heavy rents, high interest rates, and exorbitant taxes, and land is concentrated in the hands of landlords. In almost every county in China, about seven-tenths of the land is owned by landlords, while peasants possess very little land.

In a village of one hundred households, seventy are poor peasants who lack food and clothing, no more than twenty are middle peasants who have just enough to eat and wear, and no more than ten are rich peasants who have surplus grain and money. The majority of people in the countryside suffer hardships, while only a few local tyrants who collect rent and interest live in comfort. The bureaucrats and warlords in the cities are the representatives of these local tyrants. On one hand, they impose heavy taxes to exploit the peasants and petty bourgeoisie; on the other, they collude with imperialism to aid its exploitation of China. The agrarian revolution is the main content of China’s civil rights revolution. Unless the landlords, bureaucrats, and warlords are eliminated, the Chinese peasants will not obtain land, and the civil rights revolution cannot be considered successful. Therefore, overthrowing feudal exploitation and resolving the land issue is the second responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party. As stated above, overthrowing imperialism and feudal exploitation are the two major goals of the civil rights revolution. However, the Kuomintang has already betrayed the civil rights revolution, and the new warlord factions of Chiang, the Guangxi clique, Feng, Yan, and the Fengtian clique have all become representatives of the landlord class and running dogs of imperialism. Thus, to achieve the goals of overthrowing imperialism and feudal exploitation, it is imperative to overthrow the warlord Kuomintang government and establish a government of workers’, peasants’, and soldiers’ representative councils (Soviets). This is the third responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party. The Red Army, led by the Communist Party, has now arrived in this area, and the tasks it carries out are precisely the three mentioned above. At the same time, the tasks carried out by the Communist Party in leading workers, peasants, soldiers, and the masses across the country are also these three. To implement the above three major tasks, the following ten-point political program is hereby issued in accordance with the directives of the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party:

1. Overthrow the rule of imperialism in China.
2. Confiscate factories, shops, ships, mines, and banks operated by foreign capital.
3. Unify China and recognize the right to self-determination of the Manchu, Mongol, Hui, Tibetan, Miao, Yao, and other ethnic groups.
4. Overthrow the warlord Kuomintang government.
5. Establish a government of workers’, peasants’, and soldiers’ representative councils.
6. Implement an eight-hour workday for workers, increase wages, provide unemployment relief, social insurance, etc.
7. Confiscate all land belonging to the landlord class and distribute it to peasants with no land or insufficient land.

Manifesto of the Communist Party
8. Improve the livelihood of soldiers, and grant them land and work.
9. Abolish all taxes imposed by governments, warlords, and local authorities, and implement a unified progressive tax.
10. Unite with the proletariat of all countries and with Soviet Russia.

The above ten-point political program constitutes the concrete plan for achieving the three major tasks. Workers, peasants, soldiers, all impoverished masses, and all oppressed petty bourgeoisie, quickly unite under the leadership of the Communist Party and struggle against imperialism, the landlord class, the Kuomintang, and the new warlords!

Party Headquarters of the Fourth Army of the Chinese Communist Party’s Red Army
*Marching into Southern Jiangxi and Western Fujian* (Oil Painting)

Fundraising Letter
(February 13, 1929)

The Red Army is an army that seeks the interests of workers and peasants. It provides utmost protection to merchants, maintains strict discipline, and commits no violations. Due to the current shortage of military provisions, this letter is specifically sent to request your assistance in raising military funds of five thousand silver dollars, seven thousand pairs each of straw sandals and socks, three hundred bolts of white cloth, and two hundred laborers. These must be delivered to our headquarters before 8 p.m. today. We hope you will handle this accordingly and not delay. If you sit idly by and ignore this, it will prove that the merchants of Ningdu are clearly colluding with the reactionaries of Ningdu and deliberately making trouble for the Red Army. In that case, our army will have no choice but to burn down the reactionary shops in Ningdu as a warning to the obstinate. Do not say you were not warned in advance.
Before 8 p.m., the stewards of the reception office delivered the raised funds and hired laborers to the supply department of the Fourth Army headquarters on time. This fundraising task was successfully completed.

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The Importance of One Passage
Jingsheng Dayou’s family stands on love, and only then can we have today’s
strength and unity. Moreover, our funds are never unjustly taken from the two classes or harm the toiling masses. On the contrary, the bourgeoisie’s attempts to deceive the masses are utterly futile. In fact, we have already
achieved our goal without raising excessive funds. This not only resolved the Red Army’s immediate difficulties but also demonstrated
in the three counties that we can gain special advantages. This is precisely because the Communist Party’s leadership is correct.
In this period, these three revolutionary tasks must be accomplished through actual struggle and sustained efforts against the enemy to complete this great mission.
II. The Significance of Fundraising
China’s current commercial and legal foundation is primarily built upon imperialist domination and feudal exploitation. Therefore, the current Chinese revolution remains a civil rights revolution of a democratic nature, with the main tasks of overthrowing imperialist rule, eliminating feudal exploitation, completing the agrarian revolution, and establishing a democratic regime of workers and peasants. The policies of the Communist International and the Soviets first remind us that we must not waver for a moment in implementing economic policies. If we fail to correctly carry out policies in practice, we will inevitably disrupt the market or fall into right-leaning opportunism that compromises with feudal exploitation.
The main targets of our fundraising are landlords and big merchants. The nature and tasks of the Chinese revolution, as well as the purpose of our fundraising, are as stated above. Therefore, our fundraising targets must be firmly focused on the landlords, who form the feudal foundation. At the same time, since big merchants also constitute part of the economic base of exploitation and oppression, they are also targets of our fundraising. Next, middle merchants (those with assets above thirty yuan) are also subject to fundraising, though the burden on them should not be heavier than that on big merchants.
The punishment for those who resist must be severe, with no leniency for those who oppose us. Because landlords are the most counterrevolutionary representatives of feudal exploitation, we must particularly suppress them and, when necessary, confiscate their property.