Report of Mao Zedong, Secretary of
the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army,
to the Central Committee

1. Our army (the first and second columns of the Fourth Army), coming from
Ruijin and without attacking Tingzhou, took the route leading directly to
Longyan. On May 24, we reached the town of Longyan and its environs, where,
in Toushi, we took unawares two battalions of Chen Guohui's forces, one special
task company, and one machine gun company, disarming most of them, and
obtaining two machine guns, more than two hundred rifles, and thirty thousand
cartridges and capturing one battalion commander and more than two hundred
soldiers.
2. Because Guo Fengming's forces and Huang Yuepo's regiment were located in Yongding, it was necessary to crush them speedily, so on May 26 we
attacked Yongding. Huang's regiment retreated to Shanghang without a fight.
3. Our army is now at Yongding. The troops have been split up and sent to
various xian towns, such as Hulei and Jinfeng, to carry out guerrilla actions and
to assist the revolutionary masses in the work of organizing the masses. They
have also gone to new districts to launch the mass struggle and to wipe out the
forces of the militia,² and they are engaged in this right now.
After five days, they will then move on to other xian (such as Longyan and
Shanghang). The Party has a fair base in western Fujian, and the masses are
good, too. The struggle is developing daily in every xian, and hopes for the
future are very high. Most of the forces of Zhang Zhen, Chen Guohui, and Lu
Xinming have gone into Guangdong, leaving a vacuum in western and southern

Fujian. The three remnant forces of Zhang Zhen, Chen Guohui, and Lu Xinming
(replacing Brigade Commander Guo) total five thousand men, so the present
time offers a particularly favorable opportunity for guerrilla operations in the
whole of western Fujian. We hope the Provincial Committee will give more
leadership to this dimension of the work.
4. On April 1, we withdrew from Tingzhou to Ruijin. In the five xian of
Ruijin, Yudu, Ganzhou (Dongxiang), Ningdu, and Xingguo, we carried out the
work of annihilating the reactionary military forces, in order to unleash and
organize the masses. This went on for forty-five days in all, and the line [of
march] was from Ruijin to Yudu to Dongxiang in Ganzhou to Xingguo to
Ningdu. On May 15, we returned again to Ruijin. Every time we reached the
territory of a xian or of a locality, we split the troops up and spread them around
to every township. In each township, the troops were then once again split up
into smaller units. With this kind of concentration and dispersion, it is easy to
develop in tandem our plans both for winning over the masses and for dealing
with the enemy, rather than stressing one aspect or the other. This corresponds to
the directive of the Central Committee to "disperse your forces for guerrilla
attacks, under a unified command." This is the situation now in western Fujian.
5. In southern Jiangxi, during these forty-five days of guerrilla action, Zhu
Peide has again been pursuing the bandit suppression campaign,³ sending one
brigade from Ganzhou to attack Yudu and one brigade from Taihe to attack
Xingguo. The troops that advanced together from Fuzhou to Ningdu, and to
Ruijin from Fuzhou, were those of Wang Jun's division and of Li Wenbin's
forces. In Ruijin, we did not, however, launch guerrilla attacks [on them]. When
we were approaching Longyan, they had already entered Tingzhou. At this
time, when the warlords have just launched chaotic struggles in the whole country, these units of enemy forces may be unable to pursue us again. 'This cannot,
however, be determined with certainty and is under investigation. Toward such
armies with powerful fighting capacities, we will certainly adopt the policy of
moving around in circles, and will definitely not fight with them until all the
conditions exist (for example, in terms of terrain and the masses) for a sure
victory. So, in the end, the enemy will have no way to deal with us.
6. In southern Jiangxi, the base of the Party and the masses is relatively better
in Yudu, Xingguo, and Dongxiang in Ganzhou. Anyuan....4 Ningdu are not as
good, and Ruijin is just beginning. In xian such as Shicheng, Guangchang, and
Nanfeng, there is no organization at all. As for the newly reorganized Southern
Jiangxi Special Committee, in Yudu in southern Jiangxi they are extremely
short-handed. In some places adventurism prevails, and in most places it is still
opportunism (immobilism). The Provincial Committee gives them very little leadership. The three xian of Yudu, Xingguo, and Ningdu all have organs of political power (revolutionary committees of the workers, peasants, and soldiers); under
the revolutionary committees are the peasant associations and labor unions. The
landlord forces are very weak in all the xian of southern Jiangxi. Previously, the
two local armies of Liu Shiyi and Lai Shicong (the younger brother of Lai
Shihuang) were truly threatening, but the Red Army attacked and defeated Liu's
brigade twice, and he sent what was left of his troops to Shanghai and Zhejiang.
When the Red Army attacked and defeated Lai's troops at Ningdu on April 30,
they, too, were completely destroyed (Lai Shicong was made prisoner, and more
than a hundred rifles—some good, some bad—were taken). Since these two units
no longer exist, and the troops of Zhu Peide will certainly not dare to stay long in
the remote areas of southern Jiangxi, the future of southern Jiangxi also looks
extremely promising. Because developments in southern Jiangxi may also allow
the establishment of contact with the Jinggangshan in western Jiangxi (six xian,
including Ninggang), and with the forces of Fang Zhimin in eastern Jiangxi,5 we
request that the Central Committee send a circular to the Jiangxi Provincial
Committee asking them to pay attention to the work in these two localities.
7. From January 26 to January 29 on the Jinggangshan, the two companies of
soldiers under Comrade Peng Dehuai successfully resisted a very large force
engaged in encirclement for four days and four nights, but were defeated by
them in the end. The Red Detachments in the various xian, together with Wang
Zuo's battalion, are still in the border area and have not suffered great losses.
Comrade Peng then withdrew to southern Jiangxi, having obtained more than a
hundred rifles from Liu Shiyi's troops. On April 1, they joined forces with the
Fourth Army in Ruijin. The Front Committee decided that Comrade Peng's
forces and Wang's forces should be reorganized as the Fifth Column of the
Fourth Army (there is no Fourth Column), with Wang Zuo as column commander, and that the Red Guards of the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area should
constitute the Sixth Column of the Fourth Army, with Comrade He Guozhong as
column commander. In all, they have fourteen hundred rifles, and the fighting
strength of these two columns is considerable. These two columns are under the
orders of Comrade Peng in his capacity as deputy commander-in-chief of the
Fourth Army (internally, Peng is known as the secretary). The Hunan-Jiangxi
Border Area Army Committee comes under the Front Committee. When the
Front Committee is unable to exercise command directly, they are subject to the

Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area Special Committee. The heart of the guerrilla zone is
Ninggang. All the xian of the border area that have extensive forces can be
considered battle areas, and attention is paid to maintaining links with Jiangxi
and Fujian. On April 14, Comrade Peng's forces set out from Yudu, in the
direction of the four border areas of Xinfeng, Nankang . . . and Suichuan. Subsequently, they went from . . . to . . . and their activity . . . . The Second Independent Regiment and the Fourth Regiment of the Jiangxi Red Army, under the
leadership of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee, have between them about a
thousand rifles (the Fourth Army gave them a supplement of five hundred, half
good and half bad), and the combat capacity of these two regiments is fairly
good. The Fourth Regiment, which has been set up only recently, is somewhat
inferior, but its internal organization is fairly sound, and the Party is very capable
of exercising influence in military matters. Their sphere of guerrilla activity is in
Ji'an . . . Taihe, Wan'an and Xingguo . . . . In all these xian, their method of work
is inferior compared to that mentioned earlier, but under the influence of the
Fourth Army there has been some progress. When the Fourth Army was carrying
out guerrilla activities in southern Jiangxi, they were subject to the orders of the
Front Committee (their relations with the Front Committee have not changed), and
in concert with the Fourth Army they carried out the work of unleashing and organizing the struggles of the masses. Their sphere of responsibility was the forces of
Xingguo and Ningdu. After the Fourth Army came to western Fujian, they carried
out guerrilla attacks on various xian in all directions, with Xingguo as their center.
9.6 While we were in Ningdu, the Special Committee of the East River
Area7 sent us a letter, saying that the East River was preparing an armed uprising, and they wanted the Red Army to send troops to help out. The Front
Committee sent them a letter in reply stating that it did not approve of carrying out a general uprising at this time; that at present we could only launch
guerrilla warfare; and that the Red Army really could not send troops to
assist, because the reactionary forces there were very strong, and troops could
not be sent over very long distances. After arriving in western Fujian, we sent
them another letter, urging them to carry out mass work, and adding that after
the Red Army had worked for a time in western Fujian, it might possibly
come to the East River area to carry on guerrilla actions for a while. There is
liaison between the East River Special Committee and the Western Fujian
Special Committee, but hitherto there have been no links with the Southern
Jiangxi Special Committee. In accordance with the progress of the work, it is
necessary for all the special committees to have close links and for leading
organs to be set up in the territories along the borders between the various provinces, or for the Front Committee to make permanent arrangements there.
We anticipate that the Central Committee will discuss this and give direction.
10. At the time when the First, Second, and Third Columns of the Fourth Red
Army withdrew to southern Jiangxi after the defeat at Dayu, the number of men
had fallen from three thousand six hundred to three thousand, a loss of six
hundred (this includes over a hundred wounded or sick, who are now in Donggu
recuperating, so the number of losses is actually two hundred). Fortunately
[losses] were made up in the battle of Dabodi on the sixth10 against Liu's
brigade, but because there were no soldiers to carry them, all the rifles were
handed over to the Second Regiment of the Jiangxi Red Army. 11 During the past
three months, the number of men has increased by one thousand six hundred. The number of rifles has increased by five hundred (in the four campaigns
of Tingzhou, Ningdu, Longyan, and Kanshi, a total of eight hundred rifles were
gained, of which over three hundred relatively inferior ones were given to the
local Red Guards), which together with what we originally had makes a total of
two thousand. As regards ammunition, three months ago we had, on average,
fewer than forty rounds for each rifle. This, too, has now doubled. Such is the
real strength of our army. Propaganda for outside consumption gives numbers far
in excess of these. For example, the Party organs in various places go so far as to
say that Zhu and Mao have twenty thousand men, and ten thousand rifles. When
the situation is so unclear, mistakes are bound to occur in the estimates. At
present, there are three forces under the command of the Front Committee, or
which have relations with it. One consists of the First, Second, and Third Columns of the Fourth Army, with two thousand rifles. This is the main force.
Another is the troops in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area, with one thousand four
hundred rifles, and the third consists of the Second and Fourth Regiments of the
Jiangxi Red Army, with one thousand rifles, making in all four thousand five
hundred rifles. Broadly speaking, all three of these components are regular army
units with fairly good fighting capacity. They have all been created during the
most difficult high tide of the counterrevolution. 12
11. The detailed circumstances of the Party in the Red Army have already
been recounted in the copy of last year's November report sent on April 1 from
Ruijin, which has been transmitted upward by the Fujian Provincial Committee
and which you have undoubtedly perused already. Before November of last year,
the whole army had an Army Party Bureau. After the November directive of the
Central Committee, 13 we organized this Front Committee. The Front Committee set
up Army Committees to deal with the Party bureaus at various levels (such branches
included regimental committees, battalion committees, and company committees).
In addition, as regards local Red Guards, the Front Committee, in addition to leading
the Red Army, also provides leadership for the local Party offices. In January of this
year, when the Fourth Army set out from the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area to the
Fujian-Jiangxi Border Area, marching or fighting battles every day, it found itself in
a special situation. In these circumstances, and in order to deal with them, it was felt
that the system of army committees was too cumbersome, so the decision was taken
that the army committees should temporarily cease to function, power was concentrated in the Front Committee, and committees were organized under the direct
control of the Front Committee. Now, because the time has grown longer, and
the size of the Red Army has grown greatly as compared with what it was
previously, and the Front Committee cannot keep track of everything, it has been
decided to organize a supreme Party office for the army, with Comrade Liu
Angong as secretary and head of the Political Department. Some defects which
had manifested themselves within the army are now in the process of being
progressively improved.
Now let us report that as of May, the important statistics for the First, Second,
and Third Columns of the Fourth Red Army, and for those military units directly
subordinated to the Party in the army, are as follows:
a) Number of Party members, 1,329.
b) Total number of personnel: officers, 330; combatant soldiers, 734; noncombatant soldiers, 188; support personnel, 68.
c) Statistics on comrades being developed: officers, 9; combatant soldiers, 99;
noncombatant soldiers, 9; support personnel, 10.
d) Statistics regarding age: below the age of 18, 95; from 19 to 23, 544; from
31 to 40, 179; under 48, 48.
e) Statistics regarding social origins: workers, 311; peasants, 626; small merchants, 106; students, 192; others, 95.
These statements manifestly correspond rather to the viewpoint of Li Lisan than to Mao's
position at this time. Perhaps they were mixed up with Mao's own words when portions of
his report were quoted in communications of the Central Committee.

``` f) Statistics regarding punishment of comrades: exhortation, 29; warning, 96;
placed under investigation, 10; dismissed, 31; total, 166.
g) Statistics regarding activists: members of branch committees, 65; group
leaders, 123; group members, 200; total, over 500.
h) Statistics regarding comrades wounded and killed: officers, 6 wounded and
3 killed; combatant soldiers, 9 wounded and 5 killed.
Since submitting our previous letter, we sent another letter on April 1 from
Ruijin, enclosing with it a letter from Comrade Peng and a copy of the detailed
report of November of last year. We do not know whether these have all been
received by the Central Committee or not. On reaching Yudu,¹⁴ we learned of
the Central Committee's letter to all the comrades, and Central Circulars Nos. 15
and 20.¹⁵ While we were in Xingguo, we produced several thousand lithographed copies of these and distributed them to the Red Army and to the Party
bureaus in various localities. Comrade Liu Angong has not yet begun work, but
we have heard a detailed oral report. On May 20 in Ruijin we received a letter
from the Central Military Commission to the Front Committee, and on reaching
Longyan, we also received Central Circular No. 34,¹⁶ a small pamphlet from the
World Trade Union Movement, and the Central Committee's "Declaration to the
Masses Regarding the Wars between Chiang and Guangxi."
Apart from this, we have also received a small pamphlet from the Fujian
Provincial Committee "On the Political and Economic Situation in Western Fujian and the Party's Policy Now and in the Future," and periodicals such as
Liehuo (Fierce Fire). For a long time we have been in the remote mountains and
inaccessible valleys, and our communications with the outside world have been
cut off. It has truly been an unexpected pleasure to receive recently the various
directives from the Central Committee and the Fujian Provincial Committee.
Only the Jiangxi Provincial Committee has not had a single word for us during
the past three years. The last two times we have come to southern Jiangxi, when
Comrade Luo Shounan has brought documents to us from the Central Committee, he arrived empty-handed, because the documents had been retained by the
Jiangxi Provincial Committee. This is an extremely bad situation, and we request
the Central Committee to instruct the Jiangxi Provincial Committee that they
absolutely must correct it.
13. What was reported in the newspapers about how we killed people and
burned places down runs totally counter to the facts. For example, during our seventeen days in Tingzhou, we have raised only 20,000 [yuan] from the big
merchants and 30,000 from the despotic gentry and landlords. Their propaganda
said that we collected several hundred thousand. Only five people were killed, all
of them most reactionary (from the camp of Guo Fengwu). The Changting Revolutionary Committee burned four, and the Red Army burned one, but their propaganda said that more than five hundred houses had been burned. Only three or
four of Guo Fengwu's diehard followers were killed, but their propaganda said
that more than a thousand people were killed. In sum, this is all nonsense and
unworthy of credence. It has already become an article of faith that in order to
kill people and burn houses, there must be a mass basis. It can be said that there
has been no burning or killing by the army on its own.
14. At present the most pressing need in the Red Army is for personnel.
Because of the long period of struggles, our losses have been very great, and
officers and political workers are severely lacking at all levels. Our only hope is
that the Center will send us some. We now request that the Central Committee
send, within a very short time, a hundred middle- and lower-ranking officers and
a hundred lower-level political workers, as well as several doctors and several
bomb-makers. We also need five higher-ranking officers and five high-level
political workers within the next month. Comrades Zhu and Mao can leave the
ranks at any time; we must simply ask the Central Committee to send replacements.¹⁷ The people who come can be escorted here by the Fujian Provincial
Committee.
15. We request that the Fujian Provincial Committee take responsibility for
setting up an organ for communication in Xiamen,¹⁸ with exclusive responsibility for transmitting [messages] between the Front Committee and the Central
Committee. The expenses for setting up this organ are being sent in the form of

```

10,000 yuan worth of opium, to be transmitted by the Longyan Xian Committee.
As to how it is to be transported, kindly instruct the Longyan Committee.

16. Because the Red Army has been fighting for a long time, not only are the
officers and the political workers extraordinarily starved for knowledge, but they
also display mental fatigue. In order to alleviate the fatigue of the Red Army and
prepare personnel for the future, the Fourth Red Army has designated twenty two people to study in Russia, who will set off as soon as replacements are sent
by the Central Committee. These twenty-two have already been selected by the
Front Committee, as listed in a separate letter, to which we hope for a speedy
reply!
We will report subsequently on the situation regarding propaganda!

Mao Zedong, Secretary of the Front Committee

---

Notes

We have translated this report from Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, Vol. 5 (1929),
pp. 681-87. The version in Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 3, pp. 55-56, consists only of
brief extracts.
1. The heading of this document, as printed in Central Committee Documents (1929),
adds that the report reached the Fujian Provincial Committee on June 25 and the Central
Committee on July 1, 1929.
2. Mintuan, the landlord militia.
3. I.e., the "Campaign to Encircle and Annihilate the [Communist] Bandits."
4. All ellipses in this text follow those in the Chinese original.
5. Fang Zhimin (1899–1935) was born in Yiyang xian in eastern Jiangxi, and joined
the Chinese Communist Party in 1924. Following the break with the Guomindang, he
returned in the autumn of 1927 to his native place, and spent the remainder of his life
building what came to be known as the Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi base area. Though at the
outset he had no military training or experience, the forces under his control became, as
indicated above in the letter of April 5, 1929, the Third Regiment of the Red Army, and
were then reorganized in July 1930 as the Tenth Red Army. In Mao Zedong's letter of
January 5, 1930, to Lin Biao, Fang was cited, together with Zhu and Mao, He Long, and
Li Wenlin, as one of four exemplars in setting up base areas.
6. The Chinese original contains no section number 8. Either this portion of the text is
missing or section 7 (which contains several gaps indicated by ellipses) has been combined with section 8.
7. In Guangdong.
8. Here two hundred may be a misprint for five hundred; if so, the figures would balance.
9. From the context, it appears that this must mean losses in matériel, not the losses
in men discussed in the previous sentence.
10. As indicated in a note to the Chinese original in Central Committee Documents
(1929), there is a problem here, since the report of March 20, 1929, translated above,
states that the victorious battle against Liu Shiyi's brigade took place on February 11. (See
paragraph 9 of the March 20 document.)
11. In the Chinese text, a closing parenthesis appears here, but since there is no
indication as to where the opening parenthesis should be, we have omitted this one.
12. The text of this report that appears in the Bujuan is made up of fragmentary
extracts, so in general there would be no point in indicating the variants. It might be noted,
however, that the abbreviated version contains at this point the following curious passage:
"The most important thing at present is to get the popular masses themselves to rise up.
Only then can the Red Army join forces with them and fight, so as to win final victory."
13. Although the Chinese text here speaks of a "November Directive," what is actually
meant is "after the receipt, on November 2, of the Central Committee letter of June 4,
1928." As indicated above, in the Introduction, it was then that Mao was able to re-establish the Front Committee, with himself in charge.
¹⁴. The Chinese text here reads Yubu instead of Yudu. We assume this to be a typographical error.
weeks later, stressing not only his "lack of wisdom," but his physical weakness. (See
below, the letter to Lin Biao of June 15, 1929.) Moreover, as indicated in the Introduction,
Mao proceeded to spend five months recuperating in a hospital for an ill-defined illness,
from late June to late November, though he continued to direct the work of the Western
Fujian Special Committee during this interlude. Though the problem remains obscure, one
point can be asserted with confidence: in the long term, Mao had no intention of giving up
control of the army he had helped create.

--- Notes

(Sent on June 1, 1929,
from Huleishi, Yongding, in Fujian)¹
To the Central [Committee]:

¹⁵. The reference is to Circular No. 15 of November 8, 1928, "The Current Political
Situation and Mass Work," and Circular No. 20, issued in early December 1928, "The
Imperialist Invasion of China...." The texts of these can be found in Central Committee
Documents (1928), pp. 689-94 and 723-46.
¹⁶. Circular No. 34, "Guidelines for the Work of Opposing the Warlord Wars," April
10, 1929, can be found in Central Committee Documents (1929), pp. 110-25.
¹⁷. As noted in the Introduction, this had been the peremptory demand of the Central
Committee in its February 1929 letter to Mao and Zhu. In his initial reaction to this order,
while rejecting the Central Committee's other idea of breaking up the Red Army into
small units and scattering them in all the villages, Mao had indicated his willingness, and
that of Zhu De, to leave the army if "capable replacements" could be sent. (See above, the
translation of Mao's letter of April 5, 1929.) Perhaps he only reiterated here his readiness
to accept reassignment because by this time he had received the Central Committee's letter
of April 7, mentioned in the Introduction, indicating that this sacrifice would not be
required of him "for the time being." On the other hand, he returned to this theme two

¹⁸. Xiamen, commonly called Amoy in English-language sources, is located on the
coast of Fujian not very far from the localities in which the Red Army was operating at
this time.