(June 1930)

1) Who Are the Rich Peasants

There are three types of rich peasants. The first type are the semilandlord rich
peasants who work the land themselves and still have extra land to rent out. The
second type are the capitalist rich peasants who do not rent out land. Some of
them even rent land from other people, but hire farm laborers to cultivate it for
them. The third type are the newly enriched peasants who neither rent out land
nor hire farm laborers, but rely only on their own labor in working the land.
However, they have sufficient land and labor and have surplus grain to sell or
lend every year.
All types of rich peasants have two common ways of exploiting the im- poverished masses. The first way is through usurious loans (charging interest on
loans of money, grain, pigs, cattle, and oil) and sale of grain on a commercial
basis. The second way is through the particular methods of exploitation used by
various types of rich peasants, namely the semilandlord rich peasants' exploitation through land rental and the capitalist rich peasants' exploitation of the labor
of farmhands. Besides, among all types of rich peasants many engage in commercial businesses at the same time, running a small shop and peddling goods.
Therefore, they use the methods of the commercial capitalist to exploit the impoverished masses.

2) The Reactionary Nature of Rich Peasants

Rich peasants are the bourgeoisie in the countryside. But exploitation by Chinese rich peasants generally carries with it the cruelty of semifeudalism.2 In
all aspects such as land rental, usurious loans, hiring laborers, or commercial
capitalism, exploitation by the rich peasants is crueler than that by the landlords.
Thus, the interests of this class and the interests of the poor peasants and farm
laborers are diametrically opposed. This class is reactionary from start to finish.
Although in the initial period of the revolution the rich peasant class has a
need to oppose exorbitant taxes and levies by warlords, because of their fundamental interests (land and capital) they will surely stand by the landlords and
oppose the poor peasants and farm laborers as soon as the revolution is initiated
by the poor peasants and farm laborers.
During the upsurge of the revolutionary tide, the rich peasants will fervently
burn land deeds and divide up the land, adorn themselves with red ribbons, call
each other comrade, and even sneak into the Communist Party. All such opportunist actions are aimed at seeking social status and rights of leadership over
the poor peasants and farm laborers and attempting to save the development
of rural capitalism from the crisis in its development (so as to move from the
protection of family property at present to the development of capitalism in the
future). This is the most serious issue in the rural struggle and deserves the full
attention of our comrades.
When the rural struggle deepens, that is to say, when the poor peasants and
farm laborers establish strong leadership, overthrow the political position of the
rich peasants, confiscate the land, forests, and farm cattle of the rich peasants and
abolish the debts owed them, what the rich peasants do is to create rumors to
confuse the masses and to slow down the work.
When the revolution develops from crisis toward defeat, the rich peasants move
from vacillation to accommodation and even to complete betrayal, following the
reactionary line of the landlords and attacking the poor peasants and farm laborers.

3) The Controversy over the New Rich Peasants

In the past, all sides (especially those from the East River) recognized only two
types of peasants, namely the semilandlord and the bourgeois types, as rich
peasants. They did not call the newly enriched peasants rich peasants, but "middle peasants." They opposed taking over the surplus land of the new rich peasants as well as abolishing the debts owed to them. They forgot that these new
rich peasants were still an exploiting class. Although these people do not collect
land rent or exploit farm laborers, they practice usurious loans and sell surplus
grain at high prices in times of crisis. These two types of exploitation are exactly
the same as those practiced by the semilandlord and bourgeois rich peasants.
These rich peasants rely on the above-mentioned two types of exploitation and
accumulate capital gradually, rushing toward the ranks of the other two types of
bourgeois and semilandlord rich peasants. The poor peasants and farm laborers
demand not only the confiscation of the land of the two types of semilandlord
and bourgeois rich peasants and the abolition of debts owed to them but also the
confiscation of the land of the new rich peasants and the abolition of debts owed
to the new rich peasants. In all the places where the struggle has deepened, the
poor peasants and farm laborers have done this. Nevertheless, this remains an
unresolved issue of contention within the Communist Party. The view of the
joint meeting on this issue is that the same resolute support should be given to
the masses' confiscation of land and abolition of debts owed to the new rich
peasants as that which is given to confiscation of land and abolition of debts
owed to the other two types of rich peasants. Why should this policy be adopted?
Because the confiscation of their land is the only reply to their cruel exploitation
by selling highly priced surplus grain in times of crisis, and the abolition of debts
owed to them is the only reply to their brutal exploitation by making usurious loans.
These two kinds of exploitation are both of a semifeudal nature. Only through
thorough elimination of these two kinds of exploitation can the peasants be completely liberated from these semifeudal relationships. It is not enough to eradicate
only the exploitation by landlords and the first and second types of rich peasants.

4) The Broad Peasant Masses Have Sufficient Force to Overthrow
the Rich Peasants, and Only by Establishing an Anti-Rich-Peasant
Policy Can the Party Win over the Broad Masses of Poor Peasants
to Accomplish Thoroughly the Tasks of the Democratic Revolution
and Move Toward the Stage of the Socialist Revolution

Generally speaking, in the basins of the Yangzi River and the Pearl River, over
70 percent are poor peasants and farm laborers, approximately 20 percent are
middle peasants, and less than 10 percent are rich peasants. The main forces of
the rural struggle are the broad masses of poor peasants and farm laborers, and
the middle peasants are the force with which alliances can be made. The rich peasants are an extremely isolated minority. Although the rich peasants necessarily have a counterrevolutionary nature, the balance of class forces indicates
that they will be overthrown by the broad masses of poor peasants. Some
people obviously exaggerate the class forces of rich peasants by saying that there
are some provinces in the south where rich peasants or owner-peasants are the
majority or account for large numbers (e.g., "Owner-peasants make up the majority of peasants in Jiangxi"; "Owner-peasants in Meixian and Dapu are numerous and the agrarian revolution cannot be carried out there"; "The rich peasants
in Changting and Jianning, Fujian, amount to 40 percent"). They believe that the
first step should be to oppose only the landlords, and that the time is not now
right for attacking the rich peasants. These are not simply objective mistakes that
run completely counter to the social conditions. Some are counterrevolutionary
conspiracies subjectively attempting to set up the leadership of rich peasants
inside the Party and among the masses, to confuse the class consciousness of the
Party and the masses, and to weaken and abolish the Party's tasks of opposing
the rich peasants.
The right-wing opportunist views of exaggerating the class forces of the rich
peasants and maintaining that concessions should be made to the rich peasants at
the time of attacking the landlords are extremely dangerous. To acknowledge the
rich peasants as "an extremely isolated minority" and not to realize the "severe
cruelty of semifeudalism" will naturally weaken and even lead to abandonment
of the Party's tasks of opposing the rich peasants. This is also very dangerous.
The Chen Duxius of the right opportunist opposition say that the Chinese countryside has already undergone a capitalist transformation and that feudal exploitation is a remnant of the remnants. Their conclusion is obviously to give up the
democratic revolution and abandon the struggle against the landlords. If our
reply does not take into consideration the nature of exploitation, but only the
methods of exploitation, it will inevitably confirm that the "rich peasants are not
the main enemies and the landlords are," and lead to refusal to recognize that
the nature of the struggle against the rich peasants, like that against the
landlords, is to combat brutal semifeudal exploitation. In this case our conclusion would also certainly lead to the weakening and abandonment of the
important tasks of the struggle against the rich peasants. The abandonment of
this task will fail to win over the broad masses of poor peasants in completing
the democratic revolution and in marching toward the stage of the socialist
revolution. On the contrary, only by understanding that the struggles against
the rich peasants and against the landlords are both directed against the same
brutal semifeudal exploitation can the Party's policy of opposing the rich
peasants be established firmly, the broad masses of poor peasants be won
over to complete the democratic revolution and turn toward the stage of
socialist revolution, and the bases of the theories of the Chen Duxius be
overthrown completely, stopping them from talking gibberish about the "rich
peasants" controlling one region.
5) The Reasons for the Defeat of the Struggle in Hailufeng
Lie in Adventurism and Hailufeng Localism, Not in the
Struggle against the Rich Peasants³
The comrades in the East River area, drawing lessons from the defeat in Hailufeng
and the counterrevolutionary actions of the rich peasants (the new rich peasants,
whom they call the "middle peasants"), asked various localities not to attack the new
rich peasants. Such arguments sometimes also crop up in other places. This is not
very different from what happened during the Great Revolution, when comrades in
Hunan and Hubei, tailing along with Tang Shengzhi and Xu Kexiang, screamed
about the excesses of the peasant movement. Now it is clear to everyone that the
failure of the Great Revolution was not due to "excesses" but rather to "lack of
excesses" (opportunism). The defeats in Hailufeng and other places are the results of
adventurism, myopic localism, and the low tide of the national revolutionary situation at this time, but are not the results of opposing the rich peasants. With adventurist and localist leadership, defeats will occur at any time and cannot be avoided
merely by refusing to oppose the rich peasants. At the same time, the struggle
against rich peasants should never be equated with wanton burning, killing, and
looting, which lead to adventurism and setbacks from which one may draw lessons
for the future. On the contrary, resolute struggles against the rich peasants and
establishment of absolute leadership by the poor peasants and farm laborers in the
countryside are essential conditions to guarantee the victory of the revolution.
6) It Is Extremely Foolish to Refrain from Abolishing the
Debts Owed to Rich Peasants in Order to Maintain the
Circulation of Money
It is very wrong to obstruct the poor peasant masses' struggle to write off completely the debts owed to the rich peasants in order to "keep money in circulation," which means enabling rich peasants to lend money to poor peasants again.
It would not be strange for the rich peasants to raise such slogans to deceive
people, but would be most foolish if such proposals were put forward from the
poor peasants' point of view. Because once order in the rural areas is disrupted,
all lending and borrowing and buying and selling on credit will stop immediately. How can there be a situation in which the struggle has developed to
the extent of confiscating the land, but the rich peasants are still out there circulating money? The facts in all the Red areas taught us long ago that the circulation of money could depend only on the poor peasants' organizing credit cooperatives on their own, and on action by the soviet government to force the
rich peasants to give loans at low interest. It is a total illusion to depend on the
rich peasants to act generously and relieve the poor peasants on the condition
that the poor peasants not attack them.
7) Confiscating All Land and Abolishing All Debts
"Confiscating all land" and "abolishing all debts" are the two central and
irreplaceable slogans in the agrarian struggle in various southern provinces.
The masses are implementing these two slogans widely everywhere, but the
Party is acting like the tail of the masses everywhere and has affirmed the
slogans "retroactively" after the masses themselves had already carried them out.
Some have gone so far as to "deny" them from start to finish, thus acting not
only as tails of the masses but also as opponents of the masses. Without correcting these serious mistakes, the Party will not be able to lead the agrarian struggle
in various southern provinces. Undoubtedly, the two slogans of "confiscating the
land of the landlord class" and "abolishing all debts" are no longer appropriate,
and many localities have been used by the rich peasants and opportunist Communist Party members as tools to thwart the struggle of the poor peasants.
Undoubtedly, the slogans of "confiscating all land" and "abolishing all debts"
should be raised openly and straightforwardly all the time and in all places in the
southern provinces. It is, of course, very wrong to "deny" them, and it constitutes
tailism to "affirm retroactively." These two slogans should be used to mobilize
the masses. The Party should not wait for the masses to start the struggle and
then impose leadership on them. This tactic of "leading the masses only after
they have risen up themselves" is still a tactic devoid of deep understanding of
the land conditions in various southern provinces and thus it is a tactic of opportunist vacillation. This tactic of vacillation is unsuitable for the leadership of the
imminent great struggle of the hundreds of millions of poor peasants.
8) The Two Slogans Should Be Raised at All Times
The view has been expressed that the Party's tactics toward the rich peasants
should be different in the White regions and in the Red regions. In the Red
regions, the rich peasants may be attacked and the slogans of confiscating all the
land and abolishing all debts may be carried out. In the White regions, the slogan
of confiscating the land of the landlords and abolishing the debts owed to the
landlords should still prevail, in order to neutralize the rich peasants temporarily
and enable the poor peasants to win the struggle against the landlords first. This
opinion is wrong. If we recognize that the rich peasants (including those who are
rich peasants in fact, but are generally regarded as "middle peasants") are the
minority among the peasants (but more numerous than the landlords), and that
this minority of rich peasants are still exploiting the poor peasants and farm
laborers in the cruelest semifeudal way and are inevitably reactionary, our tactics should from the beginning proclaim the evils of the rich peasants and
treat the rich peasants in the same way as the landlords, and should in no
way blur the class distinction between the rich peasants and other peasants, or
give the rich peasants any chance to gain advantages. Their true features should
be exposed from the beginning, so that the masses may recognize their reactionary nature. Furthermore, the rich peasants will never be "neutral." As soon as
they see the poor peasants and farm laborers become united, they immediately
join the front of the landlords. Where is such a thing as neutrality? This illusion
of the neutrality of the rich peasants will certainly hinder the proletariat from
mobilizing the poor peasants and farm laborers to launch fierce struggles and to
fulfill the tasks of winning over the middle peasants as their allies. Therefore, if
we fail to put forward the slogan of opposing the rich peasants from the very
beginning, the poor peasants will be disappointed. This point has been proved in
the struggles in various areas of western Fujian. Because the enemies of the poor
peasants and farm laborers are not only the landlords but also the rich peasants.
Exploitation by the landlords is certainly very severe, but exploitation by rich
peasants is even more so.
9) The Two Slogans Should Be Raised in All Places
Another view holds that concessions should be made to the rich peasants in
certain places. For example, if certain xian in a province and certain townships in
a xian are so-called places "with a rich-peasant majority," it is all right not to
follow the example of places where the poor peasants account for the majority in
dividing up the land and abolishing debts. In such areas, local soviet governments may decide on a method that is different from the general method, for
example, redistributing the land according to labor power and not cancelling the
debts owed to the petty bourgeoisie, and so on. Higher-level soviet governments
should criticize these viewpoints. Such opinions present two kinds of danger:
The first danger is that the so-called "special places" may sacrifice all the interests of the poor peasants and farm laborers in order to please the rich peasants.
They do not understand that the places that have many rich peasants must have
even more poor peasants and farm laborers, that it is the tactic of the
Guomindang to accommodate the interests of the rich peasants at the expense of
the interests of the poor peasants and farm laborers, and that the Communist
Party should never adopt such tactics. The second danger is the granting to the
soviet governments of the special places the right to safeguard the interests of the
rich people (i.e., the land would not be redistributed on an equal basis and the
debts owed to the petty bourgeoisie would not be written off). In this case, the
places may not necessarily be the places that have "many rich peasants" or
"more owner-peasants" (in fact, there is no such situation in any of the southern provinces and it is merely a rumor created by the rich peasant Communist Party members). Even though the places may have very few rich peasants and owner-peasants, as long as the rich peasants manage the soviet governments
there, they can hoodwink the masses and make such demands. Consequently, the
danger of these opinions is nothing less than guaranteeing the rich peasants' exploitation and oppression of the poor peasants and farm laborers. In all the southern
provinces, the slogans of confiscating all the land and abolishing all debts should be
put forward regardless of regions. This is the only way to avoid the danger.

10) Redistribution of the Land Not Equally, on a
Per Capita Basis, But According to the Criterion of Labor
Power, Is Definitely to the Advantage of the Rich Peasants5

To redistribute the land according to labor power, giving more land to families
with more labor power, and less land to those with less labor power, favors only
the rich peasants. The reason is that the Chinese rich peasants are mainly of two
types, the semilandlord and the newly enriched. There are very few purely capitalist farms or agricultural companies, and hardly any in the various southern
provinces. The absolute majority of Chinese rich peasants rely primarily on their
own labor power. So the redistribution of land according to the criterion of labor
power is greatly to the advantage of the rich peasants, because they have not
only labor power but also ample draft animals, farm tools, and capital to go with
it. They are not like the poor peasants, who although they have labor power, have
inadequate draft animals, farm tools, and capital, or none at all. Therefore, the
redistribution of land according to the criterion of labor power is advantageous to
the rich peasants. Even among the poor peasants, the poor peasant families with
more labor power (i.e., a family of eight with four able-bodied persons) may be
better situated, thanks to the fact that they get more land, than families with
fewer laborers (i.e., a family of eight with two able-bodied persons) to grow into
rich peasants rapidly.

11) Winning Support from the Masses Is the First
Criterion for Present Policies; Developing Production
Is Not the First Criterion for Present Policies

When the outcome of the battle between the Red and White forces is still unclear, as is currently the case, the only issue now is how to win over the broad
masses to defeat the enemy and achieve the victory of the revolution. At this
time, the criterion that determines all tactics is winning over the masses, and not
something called developing production. The reason is that at present the instru- ments of production (such as land) are still in the hands of the enemy, or,
although they may have fallen into the hands of the people, may still be seized
back by the enemy, and at such a time it is out of the question to talk about the
problem of developing production. Those who raise inappropriate questions such
as developing production at a time like this obviously represent the right-wing
opportunist line of the rich peasants, because objectively they are not promoting
production but obstructing the development of the struggle, helping the landlords
to prolong their existence, and moving the revolution toward defeat.

12) Equal Distribution of Land on a Per Capita Basis
Does Not Weaken Production, But Rather Serves as the
Condition for Increasing Production

As mentioned above, when the struggle becomes fierce, only the redistribution of
land on a per capita basis can win the support of the broad masses of poor
peasants. Even for the development of production, it is better to redistribute
the land equally on a per capita basis than unequally on the basis of labor
power, and western Fujian is a very good example of this. The land in western
Fujian having been divided up equally according to the number of family members, the crops there are growing very well this year. It is estimated that the
output will increase by 20 percent compared with the time at the end of last year
when the land had not yet been redistributed. In the past, some comrades in
western Fujian worried that "the land had been divided into pieces that are too
small" and that "those who did not work the land originally and who do not
know how to work the land would allow it to fall into disuse after receiving their
share." They are also concerned about various other dangers that may lead to a
decrease in productive output. But current reality has proved that these worries
are unwarranted. Instead of falling, productive output has risen. What are the
reasons? Once the poor peasants and the unemployed masses have acquired land,
they pour all of their energies into it. Now, moreover, all those parasites, landlords, and vagrants in the countryside who never engaged in production before
will go hungry if they don't cultivate the land, so they are forced to start doing
so. Among poor peasants, labor power that was unused in the past because of
insufficient land is put to use once land is acquired. Therefore, productive output
has risen. Another reason is that Chinese agricultural production is still at a stage
of manual tilling, irrigation, and fertilization (with plant fertilizers and animal
manure). In the period of landlord exploitation, the poor peasants, figuring that
the land was not their own, were unwilling to work hard cultivating it. They
staunchly refused to "plow deeply and weed frequently." They were also unwilling to build and maintain irrigation systems or to put much fertilizer down and
did not even bother to gather manure. So the fields were increasingly neglected,
and production declined greatly, creating a nationwide agricultural crisis. The
peasants in western Fujian have acquired land, with every person having been given an equal share, and this has completely eliminated the phenomenon of
work slowdowns. They are now willing to plough deeply; they have used a great
deal of manpower in building irrigation ditches. This is very different from the
period of exploitation by the landlords and rich peasants, when such irrigation
ditches were not built. Without equal redistribution, it would have been impossible to use so much manpower in constructing and repairing irrigation ditches on
a large scale. Grain straw is put into pigsties and cattle pens to make fertilizer.
Grass roots are dug out to be composted. With nightsoil on top of this, the
fertilizer problem is solved. The above are all results of equally redistributing the
land and mobilizing manpower on a large scale. With these results, productive
output has increased.
If they are short of cattle and cannot till the land they are given, those who
used to rent cattle from the rich peasants may just confiscate these cattle and be
done with it (or not pay the rental fees for the cattle and be done with it), and
those who didn't even have rented cattle in the past may temporarily borrow or
rent cattle from their relatives and friends.
If they are short of farm tools, they may borrow the spare farm tools of the
rich peasants (once their surplus land has been confiscated, the rich peasants will
have extra farm tools), or even confiscate rich peasants' extra farm tools.
As for the argument that fragmentation of the land into pieces that are too
small is detrimental to production, this phenomenon affects only large-scale
corporate agriculture, and agricultural corporations are extremely rare in China.
What we see everywhere is small peasant production. Even the land of big
landlords is rented out to many peasant families for cultivation, not leased to one
peasant family. So there is no such thing as dividing up the land in a way not
advantageous for production. Moreover, in agriculture we need to encourage the
poor peasants to engage in collective production and move toward the socialist
road, and discourage the rich peasants from moving toward capitalist production.
The poor peasants should gather together many small pieces of land and use
the method of cooperatives, set up the cooperative system of production, and
thus head toward socialist agricultural production. This is our sole purpose.
During the period of revolution, the prices of agricultural produce were very
low, and the scissors effect developed further. The rich peasants with a lot of land were not enthusiastic about cultivating it because doing so was not to their
advantage, so production was actually undermined.
Production will not decline because families with fewer members able to
work and more members unable to work have equal shares of land. This is
because the few members in a family who are able to work are often capable of
shouldering the task of providing food for the whole family. In addition, those
who are said to be without labor power are not totally without labor power, so
they can still help out with some of the work. As for large families in which
those who cannot work greatly outnumber those who can (for example, a ratio of
nine to one), this situation is rare, and such a family may return its land to the
soviet government for transfer to others, so that it would not go to waste.

13) The Rich Peasants' Demand for Setting Aside
Public Land and Use of the Slogan of Joint Production

The model farms of the soviet governments and cooperative-style collective
production are good ways of moving toward socialization in agriculture, but in
the present period of struggle, the main task of the soviet governments is to guide
the struggle, not to promote production. Therefore model farms cannot be set up
now. In order to persuade the masses to expand the struggle, all land should
be distributed to those who need it. It is not necessary for the soviet government to retain public land, forests, and extra buildings. Everything the
masses need should be redistributed in principle. There are those who propose not to distribute all the land, but rather to set aside some public fields,
forests, and extra buildings and not redistribute them at all, because the soviet
governments need money, or in preparation for having sons the following year.
Others, such as Yuan Wencai of Jiangxi7 and Fu Bocui of Fujian, seem on the
surface to stand on the Left and advocate what is called "socialist joint produc- tion" (all land to be managed by the soviet governments; the peasants to work
and till the fields under the command of the soviet governments; products to be
distributed by the soviet governments according to number of people and need;
the surplus to go to the soviet governments). All such proposals are thoroughly
tainted with the rich peasants' line. They are clever and deceptive policies of the
rich peasants to delay the redistribution of land by the poor peasants during the
high tide of the revolution. Because what the poor peasants are busy doing is not
preparing for having sons the following year, but rather getting their own nourishment the following day. Therefore, the poor peasants demand rapid redistribution of all land. From the poor peasants' point of view, it is entirely unnecessary
to retain public land in preparation for having sons. As for socialist production,
the poor peasants should organize cooperatives for collective cultivation after the
land has been redistributed and feudal relationships have been thoroughly eliminated. The soviet governments will select places to set up farms after victory of
the revolution has been won throughout the country and move toward socialism
from there. The notion of directly implementing soviet management policies,
without going through the process of redistribution and the process of cooperatives, is an out and out illusion of the petty bourgeoisie which objectively obstructs the agrarian struggle, leads the agrarian revolution toward defeat, and
fundamentally negates the future of socialism.

14) When to Redistribute the Land and When to Reap the Harvest

In the past, the method was that if redistribution of land took place after seeds
were sown, then that crop would be harvested by those who had done the sowing. Only the rich peasants were satisfied with this policy, and the poor peasants
greatly resented it. According to this policy, in regions where there is only one
harvest each year, the poor peasants and unemployed masses acquired land in
name only, but in fact had to wait until the next autumn to harvest grain for the
first time, so the poor peasants and unemployed masses were greatly dissatisfied.
The harvest should go to whoever acquires the land as soon as it is redistributed. This way the rich peasants are displeased, but support of the poor peasants
and the unemployed masses can be secured. Purchasing the crops of the rich
peasants is another way of siding with the interests of the rich peasants. In light
of the poor peasants' needs, it is even unnecessary to pay for the crops at all,
because the poor peasants have no money to pay the price anyway.

15) Grain Can Also Be Divided Equally

When the rural struggle develops to a state of uprising, and in the struggle by the
poor peasants, farm laborers, and unemployed masses to attack despotic gentry
and burn land deeds, there will certainly be a struggle to divide up the grain
equally, followed by a struggle to redistribute the land equally. Therefore, diJUNE 1930 445
viding up the grain is an important aspect of the rural struggle. A thorough
struggle for redistributing the grain divides up equally not only the grain of the
landlords, but also that of the rich peasants. The total store of grain in a
township should be divided by the total population of the township, and then
the surplus grain of all the households should be redistributed equally without
compensation. If we raise the slogan of "opposing absolute egalitarianism"
from the point of view of the rich peasants in this struggle, we will certainly
lose the poor peasant masses. Obviously, this is wrong. Unquestionably we
should side with the poor peasants, farm laborers, and impoverished masses,
and launch the struggle to divide up the grain on an equal basis. In places
where guerrilla warfare is going on and the régime cannot be stabilized even
for a short time, the method of "seizing the grain" should be adopted. Although our purpose is to seize the grain of landlords, if the masses want to
seize the grain of rich peasants, we should also completely support the actions of the masses.

16) It Is Not Adventurism to Raise Funds from the Rich Peasants

For the Red Army guerrilla groups and the soviets to requisition funds from
the rich peasants is entirely appropriate. In the past the masses were forbidden
to raise funds from the rich peasants, and such actions were considered adventurist. This is based on the position of currying favor with the rich peasants and is
fundamentally wrong.

17) Drawing on the Fat to Make up for the Lean

If redistribution of land is carried out solely on the basis of "drawing on the
plentiful to make up for the scarce," as with the experience of western Fujian last
year, and the documents say "do not wishfully expect equalization," then the rich
peasants will have an excuse to give the poor land to others and keep the rich
land to themselves. Then the poor peasants will be very unhappy. This situation
has occurred not only in western Fujian but in most other places as well. This is a
real and important struggle within the overall agrarian struggle, which we should
not neglect. On top of "drawing on the plentiful to make up for the scarce,"
another principle of "drawing on the fat to make up for the lean" should be
added, and in the documents, "do not wishfully expect equalization" should be
changed to "do not retain the rich lands."9

---

Notes

Our source for this resolution is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 3, pp. 115-33, where it is
reproduced from a documentary collection published in China in 1982. The Japanese
editors also checked this text against the version printed in June 1930 by the Red Army,
which can be found in the Chen Cheng Collection. (Regarding this important collection of
primary source materials, see the Bibliography.)
1. This conference was Mao's answer to Li Lisan's gathering of delegates from the
soviet areas, which had been held a few weeks earlier in Shanghai. It met in the middle
and latter part of June, first in Nanyang, Changting xian, and then in Tingzhou City. For
this reason, it is referred to sometimes as the Nanyang Conference, and sometimes as the
Tingzhou Conference. (See Nianpu, Vol. 1, p. 310.) It adopted this resolution, and also the
resolution on the vagabonds which constitutes the next document in the present volume.
Mao did not draft either of them, but he revised and approved both. The line taken here
regarding class struggle in the countryside is an extremely radical one, which did not
attract universal support, as Mao himself underscores throughout the text. Already in his
Jinggangshan report of November 1928, Mao had denounced what he called there "the
intermediate class," corresponding in fact to the same stratum baptized here "new rich
peasants," and the land law which he had drafted at the February 7, 1930, Pitou Conference likewise singled out for expropriation those "owner-peasants" who enjoyed more than
the bare minimum for survival. (See above, section (B) of the Jinggangshan report, "The Land
Problem," and the text of the February 7 law.) For a comparison of Mao's agrarian policy with
the views of Li Lisan and of Moscow, see the Introduction to this volume.
2. This and other passages in bold are emphasized in the original by the use of dots
next to the characters.
3. Regarding the peasant movement in Haifeng and Lufeng (known collectively as
Hailufeng) in Guangdong, under the leadership of Peng Pai, see above, the relevant note to
"General Guidelines of the Hunan Provincial Committee," August 1, 1927, and also the
numerous references to Peng Pai in Volume II of our edition, especially the note on p. 486.
4. See, in Volume II, pp. 425-517, the materials about events in the spring and summer of 1927.
5. Consistently, in his land laws of December 1928, April 1929, and February 1930,
Mao had included the criterion of labor power, but placed it second, and indicated that its
use should be restricted. Regarding Mao's disagreements with Li Lisan and the Central
Committee over this issue, see the Introduction to this volume.
6. The reference is to a metaphor coined by Trotsky in a speech at the Twelfth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1923, which has been widely used ever
since, even though Trotsky himself soon fell out of favor. On this occasion, he exhibited a
diagram showing the relation between agricultural and industrial prices during the previous year. Early in 1922, agricultural prices had been high as compared to industrial prices;
the two lines intersected in September 1922, and thereafter agricultural prices declined
rapidly with reference to those of industrial products. The graph thus had the appearance
of an open pair of scissors. The moral was, of course, that the peasants were increasingly
unable to purchase the implements and other industrial goods they needed. For a concise
account of Trotsky's speech and the background to it, see E. H. Carr, The Interregnum.
1923-1924 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), pp. 27-36.
7. Yuan Wencai had, in fact, already been deliberately killed on February 10, 1930,
together with the other former bandit leader on the Jinggangshan, Wang Zuo, in accordance with instructions of the Communist leadership in the old base area. The two were
accused of returning to their bandit ways. This is now regarded as an error, resulting from
the "leftist" line prevalent at the time, and the denunciation of bandits in the resolution of
the Sixth Congress on soviet power. Mao is said to have disapproved at the time; he paid a
visit to their widows in 1965.
8. Fu Bocui (1896-1993) was a native of Shanghang in Fujian Province, and an early
participant in Sun Yatsen's Tongmenghui. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in
September 1927, and was appointed secretary of a Party branch in Shanghang xian. In
August 1928 he became a member of the Western Fujian Special Committee, and in 1929
he was elected to the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army. In the spring of 1930, he
was appointed commissar for economic and financial affairs in the Western Fujian Soviet
Government, but in December 1930 he was expelled from the Party because of his resistance to land reform. Thereafter, he became a xian magistrate under the Guomindang, but in
1949 he rallied to the Communist cause again, and in January 1986, he rejoined the Party.
9. These two principles "drawing on the plentiful to make up for the scarce," and
"drawing on the fat to make up for the lean" were characteristic traits of Mao's agrarian
policy for several years, beginning at this time. See the Introduction to this volume. It
should be recalled that the use of only the first slogan, which Mao stigmatizes here as an
error committed in western Fujian, occurs in his own February 7, 1930, law as well.