Carry Out a Broad and Thoroughgoing Land
Investigation Movement
Directive No. 11 of the Council of Peoples Commissars
of the Provisional Central Government
(June 1, 1933)
Up until now, the land question has not been thoroughly resolved in various
soviet areas, especially in many districts within the Central Soviet Area. Such
districts cover approximately 80 percent of the total area of the Central Soviet
Area, with masses numbering more than two million, include fifteen whole xian,
namely, Ruijin (excluding Wuyang District), Huichang, Xunwu, Anyuan,
Xinfeng, Yudu (excluding Xinpo District), Le'an, Yihuang, Guangchang,
Shicheng, Jianning. Lichuan, Ninghua. Changting, and Wuping. There are other
localities where the land question has not been thoroughly resolved either, such
as most of Bosheng, Shengli, and Yongfeng xian; some parts of Gonglue,
Wantai, Shanghang, Yongding, and Xinquan xian; and two districts, Juncun and
Huangtang, in Xingguo xian. The peasant masses in these localities have not
been mobilized on the broadest possible scale; the remnant feudal forces have
not been finally crushed; there are large numbers of class-alien elements who are
still biding and engaging in covert action within the Soviet Government. the
mass organizations, and the local armed forces; and a large number of secret
counterrevolutionary organizations are active everywhere to sabotage the revolution. As a direct result, the war mobilization effort, as well as cultural and
economic construction in these localities all lag behind the more advanced districts (almost the whole of Xingguo xian; parts of Shengli, Ganxian, Wantai,
Gonglue, Yongfeng, and Shanghang xian; the districts of Huangpi and Anfu in
Bosheng xian; Wuyang District in Ruijin xian; and Xi'nan District in Yongding
xian). It is an urgent task that does not admit of the slightest delay for the soviets
everywhere to carry out a widespread and thoroughgoing land Investigation
Movement in this whole broad area, and to develop an extremely intense class
struggle among the masses, who number more than two million, so as to launch a
final attack on the feudal forces and wipe them out once and for all. As for the
concrete measures to carry out the Land Investigation Movement, the Council of
People's Commissars has reached the following decisions:
1. Instruct the chairmen of governments at all levels to do their utmost in
providing leadership to the Land Investigation Movement as a whole.
2. Instruct the Land Commissariat, the Workers' and Peasants' Procuratorate,
the Commissariat for Justice, and the State Political Security Bureau and its
agents in each region to exert all their efforts to direct the Land Investigation
Movement, to resolve the land question completely, to reconstruct the local
soviets, and to purge the counterrevolutionaries in the countryside. Agencies of
the Central Government, such as the People's Commissariat for Land, the
Workers' and Peasants' Procuratorate, the People's Commissariat for Justice,
and the State Political Security Bureau, should do their best to guide their subordinate institutions in fulfilling these tasks.
3. Instruct the People's Commissariat of Finance in the Central Government
to guide the financial departments at all levels, waging an attack on the feudal
and semifeudal forces by imposing fines on the landlords and collecting donations from the rich peasants, while increasing the national revenue at the same
time. Instructthe People's Commissariat for Military Affairs in the Central Government to guide the departments of military affairs at all levels during the Land
Investigation Movement, reorganizing and expanding the local armed forces and
mobilizing the masses to join the Red Army. Instruct the People's Commissariat
for the National Economy in the Central Government to guide the economic
departments at all levels throughout the movement, restoring and developing
agricultural production and handicraft industries, promoting cooperatives, and
regulating the exchange of products and consumer goods. Instruct the People's
Commissariat of Education in the Central Government to guide the departments
of education at all levels, providing various kinds of concise and popular textbooks and pamphlets to all cadres and masses engaged in the Land Investigation
Movement for the sake of unfolding the movement and conducting cultural
education on a mass scale along with the development of this movement.
4. Both the provincial and xian governments should gather cadres from the
areas where the Land Investigation Movement is under way and from all the
other advanced and fairly advanced areas to attend short-term Land Investigation
Movement training classes. The xian soviet should call together the leaders of
the district soviets every month for a meeting, and every ten days, the district
soviet should call together the chairmen of the township soviets and the heads of
the poor peasant league for a meeting to examine the progress of the Land
Investigation Movement.
5. First of all, it is necessary for the Central Government to call a conference
of the principal leaders at and above the level of district, as well as a meeting of
the heads of the poor peasant league, from the eight xian of Ruijin, Huichang.

Bosheng, Yudu, Shengli, Shicheng, Ninghua, and Changting, in order to launch
the Land Investigation Movement in these eight xian.
6. In the course of the Land Investigation Movement, we must firmly apply
a class line; establish the leadership of the working class in the countryside; rely
on the poor peasants; form a solid alliance with the middle peasants; carry out a
resolute attack against the feudal and semifeudal forces; root out all the landlords
and rich peasants who pass themselves off as "middle peasants" or "poor peasants"; deprive the landlord class of its land and property and the rich peasants of
their land, surplus draft animals, tools, and houses; and distribute good land to
the workers and poor and middle peasants who were not given enough land in
the past or have not been given any land at all, and relatively inferior land to the
rich peasants.
7. In the course of the Land Investigation Movement it is important to involve the majority of the masses in the struggle against the remnants offeudalism.
First of all, by means of widespread propaganda and agitation, an investigation
should be conducted on the class status of all landlords and rich peasants. On the
basis of this class status, the land and property of the landlords and rich peasants
should be confiscated. All this should be done with approval from, and with the
involvement of, as many of the masses as possible. It is advisable that everything
collected through confiscation, except cash, should be allocated to the poorest
among the masses and in particular to impoverished family members of Red
Army men. It is also advisable that the greater part of the property should be
distributed to the masses from whose villages these things were taken.
8. The poor peasant league is an extremely important mass organization in the
Land Investigation Movement. The soviet governments at the district and township
levels must do their utmost to guide this organization, purge bad elements within it,
and induce a majority of activists to join it. The workers' small group within the poor
peasant league should be an active leader of this organization.
9. During the Land Investigation Movement, a great deal of attention should
be paid to the backward and especially the most backward districts, townships,
and villages. In promoting the Land Investigation Movement in the backward
districts and townships, and especially in the large villages, the impoverished
masses of the village in question must be incited to stand up for themselves and
struggle against the landlords and rich peasants. It is important, however, to do
everything possible to avoid all erroneous actions that might provoke local struggle among the various clans.
10. During the Land Investigation Movement, all counterrevolutionary secret
organizations and activities must be eliminated. and all rumors and sabotage
instigated by the landlords and rich peasants must be prevented or exposed.
11. During the Land Investigation Movement, the local soviet should be reformed. All the class-alien elements and other bad elements should be driven out
from the local soviet and a large number of revolutionary activists should be
invited into the soviet.

12. All those in the soviets at all levels who, directly or indirectly, stand in
the way of the Land Investigation Movement must be punished in a severe or
extremely severe manner.
Only by carrying out the above decisions resolutely can we wage a wide and
deep class struggle in the countryside, unleash the activism of the broadest
masses, completely wipe out all feudal and semifeudal forces in the countryside,
and accomplish the task of the Land Investigation Movement. It is so ordered.
Chairman
Vice-Chairmen
Mao Zedong
Xiang Ying
Zhang Guotao
--- Notes

This document was first published in Hongse Zhonghua, no. 87, June 20, 1933. We have
translated it from Mao Zedongji, Vol. 3. pp. 223-26, which reproduces the text from that
'"