Letter to Comrade Lin Biao
(January 5, 1930)
Comrade Lin Biao:
Several days have gone by since New Year and I still have not replied to your
letter. One reason is that some things have kept me busy, and another is that I
have been wondering what I should actually write to you. Do I have anything
good to offer you? After racking my brain, I still could not find anything suit-
able, so I put it off. Now I have thought of a few things. Although I do not know
whether they really apply to your situation, the few things I have to say are
indeed about an important problem in the present struggle. Even if it does not
apply to your particular circumstances, it is still a crucial general problem, and
that is why I am bringing it up.
JANUARY 1930
235
where on a nationwide scale, and then establish political power, is not, in my
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MAO'S ROAD TO POWER
by a comprehensive process of building up first the township insurrection
troops, 15 then the district Red Guards, then the xian Red Guards, then the local
Red Army troops, all the way up to non-local Red Army troops; 16 and of spread-
JANUARY 1930
237
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MAO'S ROAD TO POWER
essence of the thing and throw away the form that serves as an usher, this is the only
reliable and scientific method of analysis that has revolutionary significance.
the United States and Japan had by then become quite open and a state of tangled
warfare between Chiang Kaishek, the Guangxi clique and Feng Yuxiang was
taking shape; hence it was actually the time when the counter-revolutionary tide
had begun to ebb and the revolutionary tide to rise again. Yet a pessimistic
mentality30 was to be found not only in the Red Army and local Party organiza-
tions; even the Central Committee was misled by the superficial objective situa-
tion31 and adopted a pessimistic tone. Its February 7 letter is evidence of the
pessimistic analysis made in the Party at that time.
JANUARY 1930
239
detailed examination to ascertain whether the contradictions leading to a revolu-
tion between the Chinese bourgeoisie and the Chinese working class, forcing the
Chinese bourgeoisie to increase exploitation of the working class. 42 In the wake
of imperialist commercial aggression, merchant-capitalist extortions, heavier
burdens of taxation, and so on, comes the deepening of the contradiction be-
tween the landlord class and the peasantry, that is, exploitation through rent and
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MAO'S ROAD TO POWER
government taxation, the rise in rent and interest demanded by the landlords, and
the daily spread of the disasters of war, famine and banditry are everywhere and
the peasant masses and the urban poor can hardly keep alive. Because the
schools have no money, students fear that their education may be interrupted;
because production is backward, graduates have no hope of employment. Once
we understand all these contradictions, we shall see in what a desperate situation,
in what an anarchic state, 46 China finds herself. We shall also see that the high
tide of revolution against the imperialists, the warlords, and the landlords is
inevitable and will come very soon. All China is spread with dry faggots which
will soon be aflame. The saying "A single spark can start a prairie fire" is an apt
description of the present situation.47 We need only look at the development of
the national Situation, in which the strikes by the workers, the uprisings by the
peasants, the mutinies of soldiers, and the strikes of merchants and students are
taking place everywhere, to see that they are no longer just "sparks" and that the
time of a great "prairie fire" is undoubtedly not far off.
The gist of the above was already contained in the letter from the Front
Committee to the Central Committee on April 5, 1929, which reads in part:
The Central Committee's letter (dated February 9)48 makes too pessimistic
an appraisal of the objective situation and of the subjective forces. The three
"suppression" campaigns49 against the Jinggangshan represented the high
water mark of the counterrevolutionary tide. But there it stopped, and since
then the counterrevolutionary tide has gradually receded, while the revolution-
ary tide has gradually risen. Although our Party's fighting capacity and organi-
zational strength have been weakened to the extent described by the Central
Committee, they will be rapidly restored, and the passivity among comrades in
the Party will quickly disappear as the counterrevolutionary tide gradually
ebbs. The masses will certainly come over to us. Butcherism serves only to
"drive the fish into deep waters," and reformism no longer has any appeal to
the masses. The illusions of the masses about the Guomindang will assuredly
be soon dissipated. In the circumstances which will arise, no other party will
be able to compete with the Communist Party in winning over the masses. The
political line and the organizational line laid down by the Sixth Congress50 are
entirely correct: the current stage of the revolution is democratic and not
socialist, and the present task of the Party51 is to win over the masses and not

JANUARY 1930
241
to stage immediate armed insurrections. Nevertheless, the revolution is devel·
oping52 swiftly, and we should adopt a positive spirit53 in our propaganda
about, and in preparations for, armed insurrection. In the present chaotic situation we can lead the masses only if we have positive slogans and a positive
spirit. Only by having such a spirit can the Party recover its fighting capacity.
We feel that the Party committed the error of adventurism in the past, and now
it has a rather marked liquidationist tendency in some places . ... Proletarian
leadership is the sole key to the victory of the revolution. Building up the
Party's proletarian basis, and establishing Party branches in industrial enterprises in key areas are the greatest organizational tasks54 for the Party at
present. But, at the same time, the development of the struggle in the countryside, the establishment of soviets55 in small areas, and the creation and expansion of the Red Army are prerequisites56 for aiding the struggle in the cities
and hastening the revolutionary upsurge. The greatest mistake would therefore
be to abandon the struggle in the cities and sink into rural guerrilla-ism. But in
our opinion, it is also a mistake--if any of our Party members hold such
views--to fear the development of the power of the peasants lest it outstrip the
workers' leadership57 and become detrimental to the revolution. For the revolution in semicolonial China will fail only if the peasant struggle is deprived of
the leadership of the workers; the revolution itself will never suffer just because the peasant struggle develops in such a way as to become more powerful
than the workers.
The letter also contained the following reply on the question of the Red
Army's operational tactics:
The Central Committee asks us to divide our forces into very small units
and disperse them over the countryside and to withdraw Zhu De and Mao
Zedong from the army, thus concealing the major targets--all with the aim
of preserving the Red Army and arousing the masses. This is a kind of ideal
view.58 In the winter of 1927-1928, we did start to plan59 to disperse our
forces over the countryside, with each company or battalion operating on its
own and adopting guerrilla tactics in order to arouse the masses while trying
not to present a target for the enemy; we have tried this many times, but have
failed every time. The reasons are: 1. Most of the soldiers of the Red Army60
come from other areas and have a background different from that of the local
Red Guards ... ; 2. Division into small units results in weak leadership and

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organization and inability to cope with adverse circumstances, which easily
lead to defeat; 3. The units are liable to be crushed by the enemy one by one ..
. ; 4. The more adverse the circumstances, the greater the need for concentration and for the leaders to be resolute in struggle, because only thus can we
have internal unity to resist the enemy. Only in favorable circumstances is it
advisable to divide our forces for guerrilla operations, and it is only then that
the leaders need not stay with the ranks all the time, as they must in adverse
circumstances . ... 61
The weakness of this passage is that the reasons adduced against the division
of forces were all of a negative character, and this is altogether insufficient. The
positive reason for concentrating our forces should be62 that only concentration
will enable us to crush63 comparatively large enemy units and occupy towns.
Only after we have crushed comparatively large enemy units and occupied towns
can we arouse the masses on a broad scale and set up political power extending
over several adjoining xian. Only thus can we make a widespread impact (what
we call "extending our political influence") and contribute somewhat effectively
to speeding the day of the revolutionary high tide. For instance, both the regime
we set up in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area the year before last and the one we
set up in western Fujian last year were the product of this policy of concentrating
our troops. This is a major principle.64 But are there not times when our forces
should be divided up? Yes, there are. The letter from the Front Committee to the
Central Committee spoke of guerrilla tactics for the Red Army, including the
division of forces within a short radius. The main points are as follows:
The tactics we have derived from the struggle of the past three years are
indeed different from any other tactics, ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign.
With our tactics, the masses can be aroused for struggle on an ever-broadening
scale, and no enemy, however powerful, can cope with us. Ours are guerrilla
tactics. They consist mainly of the following points:
"Divide our forces to arouse the masses, concentrate our forces to deal with
the enemy."
”The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy
tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue."
”To extend stable base areas, employ the policy of advancing in waves;
when pursued by a powerful enemy, employ the policy of circling around."
"Arouse the largest numbers of the masses in the shortest possible time and
by the best possible methods."

JANUARY 1930
243
These tactics are just like casting a net; at any moment we should be able to
cast it or draw it in. We cast it wide to win over the masses and draw it in to
deal with the enemy. Such are the tactics we have used for the past three years.
Here, "to cast the net wide" means to do so within a short radius. For example, when we first captured the xian town of Yongxin in the Hunan-Jiangxi
Border Area, we divided the forces of the Twenty-ninth and Thirty-first Regi-ments within the boundaries of Yongxin xian. Again, when we captured
Yongxin for the third time, we once more divided our forces by dispatching the
Twenty-eighth Regiment to the border of Anfu xian, the Twenty-ninth to
Lianhua, and the Thirty-first to the border of Ji'an xian. And we again divided
our forces in the xian of southern Jiangxi last April and May, and in the xian of
western Fujian last July. These are all appropriate examples. As for dividing our
forces over a wide radius, it is possible only on the two conditions that circumstances are comparatively favorable and the leading bodies fairly strong. For the
purpose of dividing up our forces is to put us in a better position for winning
over the masses, for deepening the agrarian revolution and establishing political
power, and for expanding the Red Army and the local armed units. It is better not
to divide our forces when this purpose cannot be attained, or when, on the
contrary, the division of our forces would even lead to defeat and to the weakening of the Red Army, as happened in August two years ago when our forces were
divided on the Hunan-Jiangxi border for an attack on Chenzhou. But there is no
doubt that, given the two above-mentioned conditions, we should divide our
forces, because division is then more advantageous than concentration. As for
dividing our forces in order to preserve our real strength and avoid the concentration of targets under grave circumstances, I am in principle opposed to this,
as explained in the letter of the Front Committee to the Central Committee
quoted above. Apart from this, will there be times when the division of forces to
carry out the work is necessary, because the economic situation does not permit
concentration? Perhaps there will be. But I cannot draw definite conclusions
about it, since we have no concrete experience of such circumstances.
The Central Committee's February letter was not in the right spirit and had a
bad effect on a few Party comrades65 in the Fourth Army. It seems that even you
were influenced by it to some extent. At that time the Central Committee also
issued a circular stating that war would not necessarily break out between
Chiang Kaishek and the Guangxi warlords. Since then, however, the appraisals
and directives of the Central Committee have, in the main, been entirely correct.
It has already issued another circular correcting the one containing the wrong
appraisal. (In fact, only a part of the circular was wrong.) Although it has not
made any correction of the letter to the Red Army, its subsequent directives have
been completely devoid of those pessimistic sentiments and its views on the Red

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MAO'S ROAD TO POWER
Army's operations now coincide completely with those of the Front Committee.
Yet the bad effect which this letter had on some comrades still persists. Although
the Front Committee's letter replying to the Central Committee was distributed
within the Party at the same time as the Central Committee's letter, it does not
appear to have had any great influence on these comrades, because the letter of
the Central Committee met their taste exactly. The many correct directives issued later by the Central Committee regarding the situation have, on the other
hand, either been ignored by these comrades or have not been able to wash
away their earlier impression. Therefore, I feel that it is still necessary to give
some explanation.
As for the plan to take Jiangxi Province within one year, it was also proposed
last April by the Front Committee to the Central Committee, and a decision to
that effect was later made at Yudu. The reasons for this were given in the letter
to the Central Committee, and I reproduce them here:
The armies of Chiang Kaishek and the Guangxi warlords are approaching
each other in the vicinity of Jiujiang, and a big battle is imminent. Henceforth,
the rule of the Guomindang will disintegrate, and the revolutionary high tide
will arrive very quickly.66 As for how our work should be arranged under these
circumstances, we feel that, so far as the southern provinces are concerned, the
armed forces of the compradors and landlords in Guangdong and Hunan provinces are too strong, and that in Hunan, moreover, we have lost almost all the
masses, inside as well as outside the Party, because of the error of the Party's
adventurist policies. In the three provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang,
however, the situation is different. First, the military forces67 are weakest
there. In Zhejiang, there is only a small provincial defense force under Jiang
Bocheng. In Fujian, although there are five groups of enemy troops, totaling
fourteen regiments in all, Guo's troops have already been smashed; the troops
under Chen and Lu are bandits of small fighting capacity; the two brigades of
marines stationed along the coast have never seen action and their fighting
capacity is undoubtedly not great; Zhang Zhen alone can put up some sort of a
fight, but according to an analysis made by the Fujian Provincial Committee,
even he has only two good regiments.68 In addition, Fujian is now in a state of
complete anarchy69 and disunity. In Jiangxi, there are sixteen regiments under
the two commands of Zhu Peide and Xiong Shihui; they are stronger than the
armed forces of either Fujian or Zhejiang, but far inferior to those of Hunan ....
Secondly, fewer adventurist mistakes have been made in these three provinces. We are not clear about the situation in Zhejiang, but the Party's organizational and mass base is somewhat better in Jiangxi and Fujian than in Hunan.

/ANUARY 1930
245
Take Jiangxi, for example. In northern Jiangxi we still have some bases in
De'an, Xiushui, and Tonggu; in western Jiangxi the Party and the Red Guards
still have some strength in Ninggang, Yongxin, Lianhua, and Suichuan; in
southern Jiangxi the prospects are still much brighter, as the Second and
Fourth Regiments of the Red Army are steadily growing in strength in the xian
of Ji'an, Yongxin, and Xingguo; moreover, the Red Army under Fang Zhimin
has by no means been wiped out. All this places us in a position to close in on
Nanchang. We hereby recommend to the Central Committee that during the
period of prolonged and chaotic warfare among the Guomindang warlords, we
should contend with Chiang Kaishek and the Guangxi clique for Jiangxi Province, and at the same time for western Fujian and western Zhejiang. In these
three provinces we should enlarge the Red Army and create an independent
regime of the masses, with a time limit of one year for accomplishing this plan.
During this one year, we must lay the foundations for the struggle of the
proletariat in Shanghai, Wuxi, Ningpo, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and other
places, so that they can lead the peasant struggles in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and
Fujian. The Jiangxi Provincial Committee must be soundly established, and
efforts must be made to build a basis among the workers in Nanchang,
Jiujiang, Ji'an, and on the Nanchang-Jiujiang Railroad.
This proposal to take Jiangxi within one year erred only in mechanically
setting a time limit of one year. In my understanding, taking Jiangxi also implied, apart from conditions within the province itself, that a nationwide revolutionary high tide would soon arise. For unless we had been convinced that there
would soon be a high tide of revolution, we could not possibly have concluded
that we could take Jiangxi in one year. The defect of the proposal was that it
should not have mechanically set a time limit of one year, thus giving a flavor of
rigidity and impetuosity to the word "soon" in the statement "there will soon be
a high tide of revolution." Your failure to believe in taking Jiangxi in one year
results, however, from your overestimate of objective forces and underestimate
of subjective forces. That is why you do not believe in the rapid arrival of a
revolutionary high tide, and why you reach this conclusion. As to the subjective
and objective conditions in Jiangxi, they very much merit our attention. Apart
from subjective conditions, which are still as described above, 70 and about which
I have no new opinions to add, three points can now be clearly made regarding
objective conditions. First, the economy of Jiangxi is mainly one of feudal remnants, or of exploitation through land rents, the merchant-capitalist class is relatively weak, and the armed forces of the landlords are stronger71 than in any
other southern province. Second, Jiangxi has no provincial troops of its own and
has always been garrisoned by troops from other provinces. Sent there for the
"suppression of Communists" or "suppression of bandits," these troops are unfamiliar with local conditions, their interests are much less directly involved than if

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they were local troops, and they usually lack enthusiasm. And thirdly, unlike
Guangdong which is close to Hong Kong and under British control in almost
every respect, Jiangxi is comparatively remote from imperialist influence. Once
we have grasped these three points, we can understand why rural insurrections72
are more widespread and the Red Army and guerrilla units more numerous in
Jiangxi than in any other province.
I have more or less finished what I want to say to you. I have been long-winded and perhaps have said too much. But I feel that our discussion of the
problem has been beneficial. If indeed the issue that we have been discussing is
resolved correctly, it will have a very substantial impact on the actions of the
Red Army. That is why I have been very glad to write this piece.
Two last points must still be clarified. First, how then should we interpret the
word "soon" in the statement "there will soon be a high tide of revolution"? This
is a question shared by many comrades. Marxists are not fortune-tellers. They
should, and indeed can, only indicate the general direction of future developments and changes; they should not and cannot fix the day and the hour in a
mechanistic way. But when I say that there will soon be a high tide of revolution
in China, I am emphatically not speaking of something which in the words of
some people "is possibly coming," something illusory, unattainable, and devoid
of significance for action. It is like a ship far out at sea whose masthead can
already be seen at the horizon from the shore; it is like the morning sun in the
east whose shimmering rays are visible from a high mountain top; it is like a
child about to be born moving restlessly in its mother's womb. Second, when I
say that you want to use the method of mobile guerrilla actions to extend political influence, I do not mean that you have a purely military viewpoint or the
ideology of roving rebel bands. Manifestly, you have neither of them, for these
two kinds of ideas are devoid of any concept of winning over the masses and you,
on the contrary, have proposed to "go all out to mobilize the masses." Not only
have you advocated this but you have been carrying it out in practice. What I
disapprove of is your lack of an incisive concept for building political power.
Consequently, the task of winning over the masses and promoting a revolutionary high tide can definitely not be successfully accomplished as you have imagined in your mind. The main purpose of my letter is to make this point.
Please correct me where I am wrong.
Mao Zedong
At Shanghang, Gutian

---

Notes

This text first appeared in the 1947 Jin-Cha-Ji edition of Mao's works, Mao Zedong
xuanji, compiled by the Central Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party for the Jin-Cha-Ji
Border Area, Xubian (Supplement) (Xinhua shudian, 1947), and we have translated it
from that source. It was about to be similarly published in the two-volume 1948 edition
compiled by the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu Central Bureau of the Party, when Lin Biao made a plea to
the Central Committee that a document so critical of him should not be reproduced yet
again. The relevant pages were therefore cut out of the books, which had already been
printed, and the title blotted out in the table of contents. All references to Lin were
subsequently removed in the official version published in 1951 in the Selected Works,
under the title "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire." The fact that Lin Biao was the
target is indicated in the second Chinese edition of the Xuanji, published in 1991, but the
new title has been retained. The extensive passages quoted by Mao in this text from his
letter of April 5, 1929, are reproduced here as in the translation which appears above
under that date. Variants introduced by Mao in 1951 are indicated in the usual way.
1. The problem of how to evaluate the current situation and what actions we should
take in consequence --. Some comrades in our Party still do not know how to evaluate the
current situation and what actions we should take in consequence.
2. I know that you --+ Although they
3. Here, and in the balance of this paragraph, you --+ they.
4. Guerrilla actions --+ Roving guerrilla actions
5. It is not clear whether the words, or the name, omitted here by the editors of the 1947
edition refer to a historical personage, to one of the leaders of the Red Army at the time, or
more generally to something like "peasant-rebel style." The missing name might possibly be
that of the Taipings, persistently held up by Li Lisan at this time as a model for the organization
of a guerrilla army; perhaps Mao was accusing Lin of shifting his allegiance to Li.
6. Insurrection --+ Armed uprising
7. Imperialism is contending in its final stages --+ Many imperialist countries are
contending
8. The grave significance of the peasant problem --+ The gravity of the peasant problem
9. Workers' and peasants' political power --+ Workers' and peasants' democratic
political power
10. Small areas of Red political power --+ Small Red areas
11. The expansion of the Red Army, the guerrilla forces, and the Soviet areas --+ The
development and expansion of the Red Army, the guerrilla forces, and the Red areas
12. The highest form of peasant struggle in a semicolony and the form toward which
the semicolonial peasant struggle must move --+ The highest form of peasant struggle in
semicolonial China under the leadership of the proletariat and the inevitable outcome of
the growth of the semicolonial peasant struggle.
13. Important factors --+ The most important factors
14. The armed forces --+ The people's armed forces
15. The township insurrection troops --+ The township Red Guards
16. Nonlocal Red Army troops --+ The regular Red Army troops
17. Soviet Russia --+ The Soviet Union
18. The ruling classes --+ The reactionary ruling classes
19. One of the important instruments --+ The chief instrument
20. Overestimate the subjective forces and underestimate the objective forces -+ Over-
estimate the subjective forces of the revolution and underestimate the forces of the coun-
terrevolution. As indicated by this emendation of 1951, Mao refers to the forces of
revolution as "subjective," because they are within the control of the Communist leader-
ship, and the forces of counterrevolution as ”objective," because they constitute an exter-
nal reality with which the Communists must deal. There is little doubt, however, that in
this letter he is also talking more broadly about the importance of subjective factors and
.. conscious action," which he had stressed since his earliest youth.
21. Idealism -+ Subjectivism
22. You acknowledge the weakness of subjective forces and the strength of objective
ones, but you do not seem to recognize the following key points: -+ Therefore, in judging
the political situation in China it is necessary to understand the following:
23. The fragile social and economic structure -+ The backward and fragile social and
economic structure
24. Are much stronger -+ Are perhaps now somewhat stronger
25. The Great Revolution-+ The revolution in 1927
26. Form-+ Appearances alone
27. In appraising the objective forces -> In appraising the counterrevolutionary forces
28. The words of-> The incorrect appraisal made by
29. The largest and the third-> The enemy's third
30. Mentality-> Ideas
31. Situation -> Appearances
32. The form -> The superficial appearance
33. Brush aside the essence-+ Seize on the appearance and brush aside the essence
34. They have no scientific understanding-+ They have not made a scientific analysis
35. If we correctly recognize that-+ Since
36. The proletariat -> The proletariat in their own countries
37. Among China's ruling classes-> Among the different cliques of China's reaction-
ary rulers
38. Ruthless increases of taxation -+ Heavier taxation
39. The rulers -> The reactionary rulers
40. China's capitalism--+ China's national industry
41. The Chinese bourgeoisie -+ The Chinese industrialists
42. Forcing the Chinese bourgeoisie to increase exploitation of the working class. ->
With the Chinese capitalists trying to find a way out by frantically exploiting the workers
and with the workers resisting.
43. Exploitation through rent and interest is aggravated -> Exploitation through rent
and usury is aggravated and the hatred of the peasants for the landlords grows
44. Consumer power -+ Purchasing power
45. In the daily misery of suffering from hunger and cold, flight, and casualties-> In a
constant state of privation
46. Anarchic state -> Chaotic state
47. Of the present situation-> Of how the current situation will develop.
48. February 9 -> February 9 of last year. (The correct date for the Central
Committee's letter to which Mao had responded on April 5, 1929, is February 7. Both the
Jin-cha-ji edition of Mao's writings and the 1951 Selected Works have here February 9;
this error is corrected in the 1991 second edition of the Xuanji.)
49. The three "suppression" campaigns -> The Guomindang's three "suppression"
campaigns
50. The Sixth Congress-> The Party's Sixth Congress
51. In this instance, instead of modifying the text, Mao in 1951 inserted, after the word
"Party," a parenthetical note reading: "Here the words 'in the big cities' should have been
added."
52. Is developing -> Will develop
53. Spirit-> Attitude
54. The greatest organizational tasks -> Important organizational tasks
55. Soviets-> Red political power
56. Prerequisites -> Essential prerequisites
57. The workers' leadership-> The workers' strength
58. Ideal view-> Way of thinking which does not correspond to reality
59. We did start to plan-> We did plan

--- Notes

What is the problem that I want to raise? It is the problem of how to evaluate
the current situation and what actions we should take in consequence.1 I felt quite
strongly in the past, and to some extent I still feel now, that your evaluation of
the situation is rather pessimistic. This viewpoint of yours was most obvious at
the meeting on the evening of May 18 last year in Ruijin. I know that you2
believe that a revolutionary high tide will inevitably arise, but you3 do not
234


believe it could possibly come quickly. Consequently, as far as action is con-
cerned, you do not approve of the plan to take Jiangxi in one year and approve
only of guerrilla actions4 in the three areas on the borders of Fujian, Guangdong,
and Jiangxi; at the same time, you do not have a deep understanding of what it
means to establish Red political power in the three areas and, therefore, do not
have a deep understanding of the idea of accelerating the nationwide revolution-
ary high tide through the consolidation and expansion of Red political power.
Judging from your belief in the policy of • • • style mobile guerrilla actions, 5
you seem to think that, since the revolutionary high tide is still remote, to under-
take the arduous work of establishing political power would be to labor in vain.
Instead, you want to extend our political influence through the easier method of
roving guerrilla actions and wait until the masses throughout the country have
been won over, or more or less won over, before launching a nationwide insur-
rection6 which, with the participation of the Red Army, would become a great
nationwide revolution. Your theory that we must first win over the masses every-

opinion, applicable to the Chinese revolution. As I see it, this theory derives
mainly from your failure to understand clearly that China is a semicolonial
country for which imperialism is contending in its final stages. 7 If you clearly
recognized this, then you would understand, first of all, why, in the whole world,
the strange phenomenon of chaotic warfare within the ruling class is found in
China alone, why this warfare is steadily growing fiercer and more widespread,
and why there can at no time be a unified political power. Second, you would
understand the grave significance of the peasant problem8 and hence why rural
insurrections have developed on the present nationwide scale. Third, you would
understand the absolute correctness of the slogan of workers' and peasants'
political power.9 Fourth, you would understand another strange phenomenon,
which follows from the first (that in China alone there is chaotic warfare within
the ruling class), namely, the existence and development of the Red Army and
guerrilla forces, and together with them, the existence and development of small
areas of Red political power10 (the soviets) encircled by the White regime. (This

strange thing does not exist outside China.) Fifth, you would understand that the
expansion of the Red Army, the guerrilla forces and the Soviet areas11 is the
highest form of the peasant struggle in a semicolony, and the form toward which
the semicolonial peasant struggle must move. 12 Sixth, you would understand that
they (the Red Army and the peasants' soviet) are undoubtedly the most signifi-
cant allied forces of the proletarian struggle in the semicolonial countries. (The
proletariat must step forward to lead them), and that they are important factors 13
in promoting the revolutionary high tide throughout the country. And seventh,
you would also understand that the policy which merely calls for roving guerrilla
actions cannot accomplish the task of promoting this nationwide revolutionary
high tide, while the kind of policy adopted by Zhu and Mao, He Long, Li Wenlin,
and Fang Zhimin is undoubtedly correct---that is, the policy of establishing base
areas; of systematically setting up political power; of close coordination, organi-
zation, and training of the Red Army, the guerrilla troops, and the broad peasant
masses; of deepening the agrarian revolution; of expanding the armed forces 14

ing political power by advancing in a series of waves. Only thus is it possible to
build the confidence of the revolutionary masses throughout the country, as
Soviet Russia 17 has built it throughout the world. Only thus is it possible to
create tremendous difficulties for the ruling classes, 18 shake their foundations,
and hasten their internal disintegration. Only thus is it really possible to create a
Red Army which will become one of the important instruments19 in the great
revolution of the future. In short, only thus is it possible to promote the revolu-
tionary high tide.
Now, I would like to say more about what I feel are the reasons for your
rather pessimistic evaluation of the situation. I feel that your evaluation is the
exact opposite of the evaluation by the faction within the Party who suffer from
revolutionary impetuosity. Comrades who commit the error of revolutionary im-
petuosity overestimate the subjective forces and underestimate the objective


forces.20 Such an appraisal stems mainly from idealism, 21 and in the end un-
doubtedly leads to the erroneous path of adventurism. You have not made this
mistake; but your shortcomings seem to be of another kind, namely, underesti-
mating subjective forces and overestimating objective forces to a certain extent.
This would also constitute an improper appraisal and be certain to produce bad
results of another kind. You acknowledge the weakness of subjective forces and
the strength of objective ones, but you do not seem to recognize the following
key points:22

1. Although the subjective forces of the revolution in China are weak, so also
are all organizations (organs of political power, armed forces, political parties,
etc.) of the ruling classes, resting as they do on the fragile social and economic
structure23 of China. This helps to explain why revolution cannot break out at
once in the countries of Western Europe, where, although the subjective forces
of revolution are much stronger24 than in China, the forces of the ruling classes
are many times stronger. In China the revolution will undoubtedly move toward
a high tide more rapidly than in Western Europe, for although the subjective
forces of the revolution at present are weak, the objective forces are weak, too.

2. The subjective forces of the revolution have indeed been greatly weakened
since the defeat of the Great Revolution. 25 The remaining subjective forces are
very small, and if one judges by form, 26 this naturally makes the comrades (those
comrades who have this way of looking at things) feel pessimistic. But if we
judge by reality, it is quite another story. Here we can apply the old Chinese
saying, "A single spark can start a prairie fire." In other words, our forces,
although small at present, will grow very rapidly. In the conditions prevailing in
China, their growth is not only possible but indeed inevitable, as the May Thirti-
eth movement and the Great Revolution which followed have fully proved.
When we look at a thing, we must examine its essence and treat its form merely
as an usher at the threshold, and once we cross the threshold, we must grasp the


3. Similarly, in appraising the objective forces,27 we must never look merely
at their form, but should examine their essence. In the initial period of our
independent regime in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area, a few comrades, under
the influence of the incorrect appraisal of the Hunan Provincial Committee at
that time, genuinely believed the words of28 the Hunan Provincial Committee
and regarded the class enemy as altogether worthless; the two descriptive terms,
"thoroughly shaky" and "utterly panic-stricken," which are standing jokes to this
day, were used by the Hunan Provincial Committee at the time (from May to
June the year before last) in assessing the Hunan ruler Lu Diping. Such an
assessment necessarily led to adventurism in the political sphere. But during the
four months from November the year before last to February last year (before the
outbreak of the war between Chiang Kaishek and the Guangxi war lords ), when
the largest and the third29 ·~oint suppression expedition" was approaching the
Jinggangshan, some comrades expressed doubts, saying, "How long can we keep
the Red flag flying?" As a matter of fact, the struggle in China between Britain,

4. The objective situation today is still such that comrades who see only the
form32 and not the essence of what is before them are liable to be misled. In
particular, when our comrades working in the Red Army are defeated in battle or
encircled or pursued by strong enemy forces, they often unwittingly generalize
and exaggerate their momentary, specific, and limited situation, as though the
Situation in China and the world as a whole gave no cause for optimism and the
prospects of victory for the revolution were remote. The reason they brush aside
the essence33 in their observation of things is that they have no scientific under-
standing34 of the essence of the overall situation. The question of whether there
will soon be a revolutionary high tide in China can be decided only by making a


tionary high tide are developing. If we correctly recognize that35 contradictions
are developing in the world between the imperialist countries, between the im-
perialist countries and their colonies, and between the imperialists and the prole-
tariat,36 it follows that the need of the imperialists to contend for the domination
of China becomes more urgent. While the imperialist contention becomes more
intense, both the contradiction between imperialism and the whole Chinese na-
tion and the contradictions among the imperialists themselves develop simulta-
neously on Chinese soil, thereby creating the tangled warfare which is expanding
and intensifying daily and giving rise to the continuous development of the
contradictions among China' s ruling classes. 37 In the wake of the contradictions
among the rulers----the chaotic warfare among the warlords~ome ruthless in-
creases of taxation, 38 which steadily sharpen the contradiction between the broad
masses of taxpayers and the rulers. 39 In the wake of the contradiction between
imperialism and China's capitalism40 comes the failure of the Chinese bourgeoi-
sie41 to obtain concessions from the imperialists, which sharpens the contradic-

interest is aggravated.43 Because of the pressure of foreign goods, the exhaustion
of the consumer power44 of the worker and peasant masses, and the increase in
government taxation, more and more dealers in Chinese-made goods and inde-
pendent small producers are being driven into bankruptcy. Because of endless
expansion of armies and constant extension of the warfare under the condition of
lack of provisions and funds, the masses of soldiers are in the daily misery of
suffering from hunger and cold, flight, and casualties.45 Because of the growth in


60. Most of the soldiers of the Red Army -> Most of the soldiers in the main force of
the Red Army

61. The suspension points here are Mao's but we have added the indication that points
(1) and (3) of the April 5 letter are quoted above in abridged form.

62. Should be -> Is

63. To crush -> To wipe out

64. A major principle -> A general principle

65. A few Party comrades -> Some Party comrades

66. Henceforth, the rule of the Guomindang will disintegrate, and the revolutionary
high tide will arrive very quickly -> The resumption of mass struggle, coupled with the
spread of contradictions among the ruling reactionaries, makes it probable that there will
soon be a high tide of revolution.

67. The military forces-> The military forces of the enemy

68. Good regiments -> Relatively strong regiments

69. Complete anarchy -> Complete chaos

70. Described above -> Described in the letter to the Central Committee

71. Are stronger -> Are weaker

72. Insurrections -> Uprisings