After listening to the reports on the Li Lisan line and the Fourth Plenary Session, the enlarged meeting of the Central Bureau fully agrees with the International letter and the resolutions of the Fourth Plenary Session.

The enlarged meeting unanimously holds that the Li Lisan line is an anti-Marxist-Leninist, anti-Comintern line of putschism.

Since the Political Bureau resolution of June 11, it has completely dominated the Central Committee and the entire Party.

However, in the Soviet areas, starting from the Soviet Congress, the Li Lisan line had already played a leading role.

When the International’s July resolution provided the Chinese Party with a correct line, the Third Plenary Session, convened to accept the International line, not only failed to accomplish this task—liberating the Party from the Li Lisan line and shifting to the International line—but instead compromised with the Li Lisan line, preventing the International line from being implemented within the Party.

The enlarged meeting especially highlights the great significance of the Fourth Plenary Session. It profoundly criticized the erroneous line of the Central Bureau during the aforementioned period and sharply denounced the Central Committee’s disrespect for the International’s instructions and its representatives at that time.

It fully adopted the International line, brought about a thorough transformation of the Party’s political line, and correctly identified the Party’s current tasks.

At the same time, the Fourth Plenary Session reorganized the Central Committee and the Central Political Bureau, expelled the comrades most responsible for the Li Lisan line from the Political Bureau and the Central Committee, and brought in new comrades who actively supported the International line into the Central Committee and the Political Bureau.

The Fourth Plenary Session and the Central Committee after it also dealt a severe blow to the anti-International, anti-Party rightists led by Luo Zhanglong and others, and succeeded in overcoming them.

The enlarged meeting expresses full agreement with all these resolutions and work of the Fourth Plenary Session and the Central Committee after it.

The enlarged meeting further holds that before the Tingzhou Conference, the line of the Front Committee of the Fourth Army was generally correct, implementing the correct line of the Sixth National Congress of the Chinese Party.

The Front Committee of the Fourth Army resolutely fought for a worker-peasant regime and firmly opposed the hooligan line that rejected political power.

The Front Committee persistently carried out the agrarian revolution to win over the masses, waging relentless struggles against all opportunism on the land issue. Through these struggles, it contributed much valuable experience on the land question.

The Front Committee had a correct understanding of the Red Army, establishing an entire system for it, such as instituting Party leadership, the political commissar system, soldiers’ committees, the military supply system, and fundraising lines, especially establishing the line of mass work.

Moreover, the Front Committee correctly recognized the importance of arming local masses and correctly implemented urban policies.

To resolutely carry out these tasks, the Front Committee waged long, determined struggles against putschism, opportunism, flightism, and the hooligan line.

At the Seventh Congress of the Fourth Army, the hooligan line formally attacked, assumed a leading role, and dominated the Front Committee, resulting in the temporary defeat of the Party’s correct line.

Through the Eighth Congress, and especially the intense struggles of the Ninth Congress, the leadership of the hooligan line was in practice declared bankrupt. The determined struggle of the correct line against the hooligan line was only then brought to a conclusion. The Front Committee’s ability to correctly and resolutely fight to implement the line of the Sixth National Congress of the Chinese Party stemmed from its capacity to correctly analyze the political situation in each period, particularly recognizing the essence of struggle in semi-colonial China and the role of peasant wars, thus affirming the possibility of the Soviet’s existence and development. By drawing experience from the actual struggles of the Soviet movement, it could correctly apply tactics and combat left and right opportunism.

However, starting from the Tingzhou Conference—when the Fourth Army and the Third Army converged to form an army corps and its Front Committee—the Front Committee accepted the Li Lisan line, abandoned the work of consolidating the Soviet areas, and adopted an adventurist line, advancing recklessly toward large cities.

Although on certain individual issues, such as the land question, the local armed forces, and the Red Army’s mass work, the Front Committee did not waver from its correct line due to the Li Lisan line, after the attack on Changsha (when this army corps and the Third Army Corps converged to form the General Front Committee), it was proven that the Li Lisan line was wrong and unworkable. Consequently, the General Front Committee moved from initially doubting the Li Lisan line to opposing it, shifting to a correct line.

The formal formation of this shift occurred at the Luofang Conference in Xinyu.

This shift was already clearly established in the Party’s documents.

It was only through many intense struggles—such as those at the Yuanzhou Conference, the Xiajiang Conference, and the Taipingwei Conference—that this outcome was achieved.

Finally, at the Huangpi Conference in Ningdu, it was even more concretely pointed out that there existed two lines within the Party; the erroneous Li Lisan line must be overthrown, and the correct line implemented, for the revolution to march toward victory.

In the era of the Li Lisan line, the Front Committee of the Third Army Corps fully implemented that line.

However, under the leadership first of its previous Military Commission and later its Front Committee, the Third Army Corps fought many heroic battles—such as those at Changsha, Yuezhou, Pingjiang, Liuyang, and Daye—which indeed wrote a most glorious chapter in the history of the Red Army’s warfare.

In the past, the Third Army Corps neglected issues such as winning over the masses, carrying out the agrarian revolution, and establishing Soviet power. Its Red Army strategy was that of fluid guerrilla warfare.

In its first offensive on Changsha, the Third Army Corps, in terms of overall political line, was implementing the Li Lisan line. However, the reason it could capture Changsha and achieve such great political significance was that its Front Committee correctly assessed the local balance of enemy and our forces in Changsha (regarding the analysis of the nationwide class force balance, the Front Committee had made the erroneous Li Lisan-line estimate) and because of the heroic struggle of the Third Army Corps.

As for the second offensive on Changsha, it was even more adventurist.

But the Changsha campaign clearly demonstrated that the Li Lisan line was unworkable, declaring its complete bankruptcy. It enabled the General Front Committee’s line to shift and brought the Third Army Corps, under the General Front Committee’s leadership, swiftly onto the correct path. Although the Party departments nationwide could not immediately grasp the lesson of the Changsha campaign to oppose the Li Lisan line, after shifting its line, the General Front Committee correctly decided on the strategy of luring the enemy in deep to crush the enemy’s offensive, resolutely opposing putschism. As a result, the great victories of Longgang and Dongshao were achieved.

The line of the Jiangxi Party can roughly be explained through three periods:

The first is the period before the Erqi Conference of 1930, a period when the opportunist line continued to dominate, characterized mainly by the failure to establish Soviet power. Although Red areas had been opened up for two or three years, land had still not been distributed. Landlords and rich peasants filled the Party and revolutionary organizations. Though the agrarian revolution had been launched, the peasants’ struggle could not be correctly led to establish a revolutionary foundation.

The second period spans from the Erqi Conference (the joint meeting of the Fourth Army Front Committee, the West Jiangxi Special Committee, and the Military Committees of the Fifth and Sixth Armies) to the Eryi Conference (the Second Plenary Session of the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee). This was a period of transforming opportunism, resolutely implementing the agrarian revolution. Only then were the broad masses of southwestern Jiangxi mobilized in the heroic struggles of the several attacks on Ji’an, creating the present Soviet areas.

The Erqi Conference called for revolutionary comrades within the Party to rise up and overthrow the opportunist political leadership, expel landlords and rich peasants from the Party, and rapidly Bolshevize the Party.

But a shortcoming of this period was the failure to organizationally and resolutely purge opportunist elements. Moreover, in the latter half, it politically came under the influence of the Li Lisan line, causing the Soviet area to neglect consolidation work.

The third period goes from the Eryi Conference to the Futian Incident.

The Eryi Conference was a conference led by the Li Lisan line, effectively manipulated by the tuanpai to attack the Party.

After the Eryi Conference, the Li Lisan line completely dominated the Jiangxi Party. It shook the principle of equal land distribution, concentrated all local armed forces completely into the 20th and 35th Armies, abandoned consolidation work in the Soviet areas, and adventurously attacked central cities like Ganzhou.

Its criticism of the Front Committee of the First Front Army was that "simultaneous expansion and consolidation is full-fledged peasant mentality" and "attacking Ji’an first and Jiujiang later is ruining the high tide of the Chinese revolution."

The Li Lisan line became so frenzied that it ended up serving as a banner for the tuanpai, precipitating the counter-revolutionary Futian Incident.

The Central Bureau of the Soviet Area was established under the conciliatory line of the Third Plenary Session. Its line, naturally, was a conciliatory line toward the Li Lisan line.

In its overall work arrangements, the Central Bureau did not resolutely implement the International’s instructions on work in the Soviet areas, nor did it criticize and correct the Li Lisan line in the Party’s past work, although on many individual issues—such as the question of local armed forces, the relationship between trade unions and Soviets, and problems within the Red Army—it provided correct solutions.

The Central Bureau’s assessment of the current situation was erroneous. It fundamentally failed to point out that the counter-revolution’s offensive against the revolution, especially against the Red Army and the Soviet areas, was the central issue in China’s political life at the time. Instead, it stated that the warlords were attacking the Red Army merely in preparation for their own internecine wars (see Circular No. 8).

Such an erroneous estimation risked slackening our main task—breaking the enemy’s offensive—and could breed a mood of waiting for warlord wars. It was only because the General Front Committee had previously made a correct estimation that such adverse results did not occur.

Furthermore, the Central Bureau’s resolution of the Futian Incident was also erroneous.

The Central Bureau’s circular stated: "It cannot be affirmed that the Futian Incident was an insurrection of the tuanpai’s liquidationists," and "the Futian Incident evolved from unprincipled factional disputes within the Party."

This blurred the counter-revolutionary nature of the Futian Incident, failing to recognize it as a counter-revolutionary insurrection led by the tuanpai, with the participation of some adherents of the Li Lisan line. It explained this incident as an "intra-Party factional struggle."

This explanation was utterly wrong, divorced from a class standpoint. It relaxed the struggle against the tuanpai, enabling them, under such an erroneous resolution, to continue their activities and develop their organization. Hence, the Central Bureau’s decision was not only mistaken but also extremely dangerous.

In its resolution on the land question, the Central Bureau mixed correct and erroneous lines indiscriminately.

The Central Bureau did not clearly recognize the current democratic stage of the revolution, nor did it realize that under China’s existing land relations, the Party should resolutely lead the equal distribution of all land.

The Central Bureau’s resolution wavered on equal distribution, stating, for instance: "Equal distribution is a petty-bourgeois fantasy." This fails to recognize that equal distribution of land is the most thorough method to eliminate feudal relations.

Only after equal distribution, when some peasants might imagine that equalization has already leveled the rich and poor and represents socialism, is there fantasy. The Party should prudently criticize such fantasies.

To declare generally that equal distribution is a fantasy is to undermine the resolution on equal land distribution, which could be exploited to oppose the agrarian revolution.

Moreover, the Central Bureau’s decision to adopt a distribution method primarily based on labor capacity with population as a supplement—without prior detailed review and study, and without adopting the experience of past struggles—was incautious.

Furthermore, the Central Bureau did not understand that the Chinese agrarian revolution takes the form of a brutal peasant war, and that distribution based on population is the way to swiftly win over the masses.

Additionally, regarding the question of opposing the rich peasants, the Central Bureau did not distinguish between the differing strategies required before and after an uprising.

Before an uprising, the main tasks are not only to oppose rich peasant leadership politically but also to economically abolish their debts and confiscate their land. After an uprising—as in the present period—the main tasks are to politically eliminate the influence of the rich peasants, expel them from the Soviets, consolidate the leadership of hired laborers and poor peasants, and place the rich peasants in a politically subjugated position.

It is not as the Central Bureau’s circular stated: “Economically disarm the rich peasants and eliminate their semi-feudal exploitation” (after land distribution, semi-feudal exploitation has already been abolished).

The Central Bureau’s erroneous instructions not only fail to correct all past leftist mistakes on the rich peasant question but will actually exacerbate them.

Finally, the Central Bureau did not deeply adopt the rich experience gained in carrying out the agrarian revolution in the past, nor did it attach importance to the course of past theoretical struggles on the land question.

This is an important reason for all the above-mentioned errors committed by the Central Bureau.

Lastly, the Central Bureau paid insufficient attention to issues such as transforming the Soviets, creating a genuine, iron-clad worker-peasant Red Army, establishing Soviet base areas, and the preparation and propaganda for convening the First All-China Soviet Congress.

All this is the result of the conciliatory line.

The evil consequences of implementing the Li Lisan line in the Soviet areas were very evident: the Soviet regions were correspondingly reduced; local armed forces were concentrated into the Red Army.

The Party and the Soviets, in certain actions, became detached from the masses; the Party and the Soviets became organizationally lax; the tuanpai and other counter-revolutionary factions gained opportunities to develop and infiltrate the Party and the Soviets; the Red Army, due to the past implementation of reckless expansion, also suffered considerable damage.

When assessing the current situation, the enlarged meeting fully agrees with the Central Committee’s "Resolution on Opposing the Warlords’ Offensive Against the Red Army and the Soviet Areas" and the several directives to the Red Army.

The enlarged meeting unanimously holds that the recent development of the revolution has provoked unity among the reactionary ruling classes to attack the revolution, especially to attack the Red Army and the Soviet areas.

On the other hand, the Kuomintang is also implementing deceptive policies.

Such as “National Assembly,” “general amnesty,” and “abolition of internal duties” to deceive the masses, and organizing counter-revolutionary groups within the Soviet areas, such as the Tuan, the Social Democratic Party, the Reorganizationists, and the Beiji Hui, attempting to undermine the Soviets and the Red Army from within.

However, it must also be pointed out that although the ruling classes are united in attacking the revolution, their internal contradictions not only persist but continue to develop.

The uneven development of the revolutionary forces in China means that the threats posed by the revolutionary forces to the various warlord factions differ in degree. Therefore, while they attack the Red Army, the possibility of warlord wars breaking out remains.

Moreover, the recent detention of Hu Hanmin by Chiang Kai-shek and the tense military preparations by the northern warlords demonstrate the sharpening internal contradictions within the ruling class and the active preparation for large-scale warlord wars.

Although the Nanjing government has dispatched significant forces to attack the Red Army and the Soviet areas, the Red Army is fully capable of breaking such offensives. This is because the white army is unsound, there is discord between officers and soldiers, soldiers’ lives are harsh, and the various petty warlords attacking the Red Army are also disunited and rife with conflicts.

On the Red Army’s side, there is complete unity from top to bottom, “ten thousand people as one heart,” and the broad support of the workers and peasants; it is by no means fighting alone. Therefore, in the brutal struggle between the Red Army and the white army, the Red Army and the broad masses of workers and peasants, under the correct leadership of the Communist Party, can secure the first great victory and shatter the imperialist and Guomindang offensive.

The first great victory at Longgang and Dongshao is proof of this.

Under the current circumstances, our main tasks are:
1. Mobilize all forces, correctly coordinate the masses of workers and peasants and local armed forces with the main forces of the Red Army, and apply all strategies and tactics favorable to us to break the enemy’s encirclement and offensives. In the course of breaking the enemy’s attacks, we must achieve the goal of building the Jiangxi Soviet area into a base area for a nationwide Soviet regime. On this base, convene a National Soviet Congress and establish a provisional central government. Preparatory work and calls for the Soviet Congress should begin immediately.

2. Immediately formulate concrete plans to forge a truly ironclad Red Army of workers and peasants, correct past shortcomings and mistakes in work, reform military and political cadres, and promote workers to leadership positions as much as possible. Improve soldiers' military training, establish iron discipline, purge members of the Tuan and other reactionary elements from the Red Army, and must block all possibilities for reactionary elements to infiltrate the Red Army again.

3. Continue to reform Soviet political power, not only purging the sons of landlords and gentry, rich peasants, hooligans, etc., but also establishing regular Soviet work to gain higher trust from the masses through this work. The phenomenon of the Party monopolizing government work and the evil phenomenon of “the Party is the legislative body, the government is the executive body” must be immediately eliminated, and a consistent work system between higher and lower levels of government must be established.

The government should immediately promulgate an election law and regulations on economic policy.

Regarding the land issue, it is determined that land shall be divided equally on a per capita basis. In areas where equal distribution has not yet been carried out, the principle of taking from those with excess to give to those with too little, and taking from the fertile to compensate the barren, must be implemented immediately. In areas where distribution has already been completed, private ownership of land must be affirmed and must not be disturbed by further redistribution.

Members of landlords’ families and exploiting elements within feudal appendages such as Daoist priests, monks, and geomancers do not have the right to receive land, but they are allowed to rent land. Detailed measures will be addressed in a separate resolution. Merchants and the poor in small rural market towns who are primarily engaged in farming, with commerce as a secondary occupation, are not subject to this category and may not receive land.

As for the houses of landlords and their families, they shall all be confiscated and redistributed to the poor peasant masses, but such elements may be allowed to move into vacant, dilapidated houses.

5. Strengthen proletarian leadership, establish sound class trade unions and trade union work, correctly lead the class struggle, and implement the government labor laws. In the current Soviet areas, the work of hired farmhands' unions is an important part of the trade union movement.

Independent laborers may not join trade unions, but if after receiving land they remain in the position of poor peasants, they may join the poor peasants’ leagues like other poor peasants.

6. Intensify counter-revolutionary suppression work to thoroughly eliminate all counter-revolutionary factions.

7. Intensify anti-imperialist work and propaganda in the Soviet areas, especially against imperialist attacks on the Soviet areas and the Red Army, against imperialist wars, and particularly against the war being prepared to attack the Soviet Union. Establish organizations of the Anti-Imperialist League.

8. Resolutely carry out the work of Party reform, purge alien class elements, thoroughly reform cadres, and cultivate new, genuine worker and peasant cadres to assume leadership work.

9. Strengthen work in white areas, especially revolutionary work within the white army, to lead the revolutionary movement in white areas, disrupt the enemy’s rear, and disintegrate the enemy’s forces.

The enlarged meeting points out that only by correctly waging the struggle on two fronts can the Party correctly fulfill these tasks. At present, the greatest danger for the Party remains right opportunism—right-leaning sentiments such as passivity, pessimism, despair, and concessions to class enemies. These sentiments, especially in response to the enemy’s offensives and the sharpening class struggle within the Soviet areas, have gained opportunities to grow. Therefore, the Party must vigorously oppose right opportunism, while at the same time not slackening for a moment the struggle against the line of the Lisan line, firmly eliminating its remnants, especially the Lisan line in practical work.

Only by correctly waging the struggle on two fronts, resolutely implementing the international line and the resolutions of the Fourth Plenum, can we surely be led to new and great victories.