(1) The Work of Township Soviet Representative Conferences

1. Township Soviets (alongside urban Soviets) are the fundamental organizations of Soviet power. They are the level closest to the masses, with the most direct ties to them, and serve as the organs that directly lead the masses in implementing the various measures and decrees of the Soviets.

2. The township Soviet (representative conference) is the highest organ of power in the township. All important decrees and measures from higher-level Soviets, as well as various political, mobilization, economic construction, and other issues within the township, must be discussed, decided upon, and implemented through the representative conference.

3. Therefore, township representative conferences should convene regularly and on schedule. It is incorrect for representative conferences in some places not to meet regularly. Ideally, representative conferences should be held once every twenty days (once every half-month or once a month is also acceptable, to be decided based on actual circumstances). In cases of special and urgent matters, the presidium may temporarily convene a representative conference. The meeting should not be too long; usually, two to three hours per session is best. During busy farming seasons, representative conferences should be held in the evening.

4. Each representative conference should have an agenda, that is, the issues to be discussed at that meeting. This agenda should be prepared in advance by the presidium and notified to the representatives several days beforehand, so that the representatives can prepare in advance and solicit opinions from the masses. Only one major issue should be on each agenda. In addition, there may be one or two secondary issues. If three or four major issues are raised for discussion at a single meeting, the meeting will not yield good results.

5. For each issue under discussion, a comrade should give a report (the township Soviet chairperson or a comrade specifically in charge of such work, such as the heads of various committees, the captain of the Red Guard brigade, the head of the Poor Peasants’ League, etc.). The report must be practical, concrete, and substantive. The report time should not exceed ten minutes. The remaining time should be devoted to discussion. After the discussion, the rapporteur or the chairperson should succinctly summarize the opinions expressed by the representatives during the discussion into a conclusion.

6. Every issue discussed should be made practical, and specific resolutions or decisions should be made. A certain comrade or several comrades should be designated to carry them out. For relatively large issues, they can be broken down into several items for discussion. For example, when discussing spring plowing issues, it can be divided into: "How to solve the difficulty of labor shortage?", "How to solve the shortage of oxen, seeds, and farm tools?", "How to prevent summer famine by planting more early crops, and how much to plant?", "Plant more cotton", "More hoeing and more plowing", etc. After each item is discussed, specific decisions and division of labor should be made. For example, "How to solve the difficulty of labor shortage" decisions: (1) Organize plowing mutual aid cooperatives, to be established within two weeks. In Village A, Comrade Zhang is responsible, with at least thirty members; in Village B, Comrade Li is responsible, with at least fifty members; in Village C, Comrade Wang is responsible, with at least thirty-five members. (2) Mobilize women to participate. First, mobilize the wives of all representatives to take the lead, with each representative responsible; Comrade Zhang Xiuying, a female comrade, is responsible for supervision. Second, this issue should be discussed at the lower-level women’s representative conference. Comrade Zhang Xiuying should consult with the head of the women’s representative conference, take charge of convening the meeting, and attend on behalf of the township Soviet to give a report. Third, organize production study groups, with Comrade Bai responsible. (3) Mobilize children to participate in labor: First, a certain comrade should inform the Children’s Corps and mobilize them to collect manure, plant melons, and grow vegetables. Second, Comrade Wu is responsible for negotiating with the Lenin Primary School so that during busy farming seasons, classes are only held in the morning, and students return home in the afternoon to help with farm work, etc. During discussion, proceed item by item. Once a result is reached for an item, record it in the minute book. The presidium and the next representative conference can use it to supervise and inspect every decision. The presidium should regularly urge the designated comrades to complete their tasks. At the next representative conference or one not long after, it should check whether these decisions have been implemented. If a comrade has not implemented them, appropriate criticism should be given. If a comrade made mistakes during implementation, he should be properly told how to correct them. In this way, the representative conference will always be concrete, practical, lively, and vigorous.

7. To ensure that every representative can attend the representative conference, the date of the next meeting should be decided at the current meeting (or a general rule can be established, such as meeting on the 5th and 20th of each month). Three to five days before the meeting, the chairperson should, through the village directors, inform the representatives of the meeting date, time, location, and the issues to be discussed. Roll call must be taken at each meeting, and a mark placed by the name of anyone who is absent. After the meeting, the presidium or the village director should inform the absent representatives, ask their reasons, and tell them about the discussions and decisions of the representative conference. If a representative is absent without reason, they should be criticized and urged to attend the next meeting.

8. The chairperson during the representative conference meeting should be the chairperson of the township Soviet, as he is familiar with the overall situation of the township and understands the process of previous work.

9. For the representative conference to be held well, the presidium must prepare thoroughly in advance. Three to five days before the representative conference meeting, the chairperson should first hold a meeting to discuss the agenda of the representative conference, designate the person to give the report, and assist him in preparing the report. The township chairperson should bear special responsibility for this.

(2) Work of the Presidium

10. The presidium is the highest organ of power in the entire township after the representative conference adjourns. It should implement the resolutions of the representative conference and the orders and instructions of higher-level Soviets, and actively lead all work in the township.

11. The presidium is elected by the representative conference. For large townships, five members; for small townships, three members. The most active and capable persons should be elected. A chairperson should be elected from within the presidium—that is, the chairperson of the township Soviet.

12. The presidium should have a division of labor. If it is a three-member presidium, the division should be chairperson, vice-chairperson, and secretary (who must be literate; if there is no literate person among the representatives or presidium members, an additional clerk should be found, who will not participate in the presidium). If it is a five-member presidium, the division can be chairperson, vice-chairperson, secretary, and heads of the spring plowing committee, the special care for Red Army families committee (or other important committee heads).

13. The chairperson presides over the entire township’s work, attends meetings convened by higher levels, handles daily affairs, and should focus closely on the few central tasks of each period (such as expanding the Red Army, land verification, elections, road repair, spring plowing campaigns, developing cooperatives, etc.). He should also pay attention to the leadership of regular work (such as training of the Red Guards and Young Pioneers, red alert security, grain, education, health, special care for Red Army families, etc.), and also attend to temporary issues arising in the township (such as famine, plague, counter-revolutionary activities, etc.). The chairperson should regularly think about all aspects of the township’s work, see how they are progressing, identify which tasks are weak or poorly done, consider how to strengthen them, determine which villages are lagging in work, and how to assist them. He should attend meetings in one or two administrative villages, collect good experiences and bad phenomena from each village's work on various tasks, and report them at the presidium or representative conference, providing materials for the conference when discussing these issues. The chairperson should also attend meetings of one or two committees and mass organizations. The vice-chairperson assists in handling daily affairs, should have a general understanding of the township’s work, so as to act on behalf of the chairperson when he is absent. The vice-chairperson must also take charge of leading the work of one or two villages and attend meetings of several committees and mass organizations.

The secretary handles the population register, land registration, marriage and death registration, voter registration, various survey forms, writes reports to the district Soviet, issues travel passes, sends notices, assists residents and Red Army dependents in writing letters. If the chairperson and vice-chairperson are illiterate, the secretary reads higher-level documents to them. Important documents should be read aloud at representative conferences, and minutes should be taken during meetings. If the secretary is a representative, they should participate in the presidium and can be assigned to attend meetings of several committees and mass organizations.

The remaining members of the presidium should also each take responsibility for leading the work of one or two villages, committees, and mass organizations.

14. Presidium meetings should be held regularly, preferably once every five or seven days. When the presidium meets, for important issues, village representative directors and committee heads may be invited to attend; for ordinary issues, it is unnecessary.

15. Presidium meetings should regularly discuss work reports from various committees (such as the spring plowing committee, the special care for Red Army families committee, etc.) and reports from various mass organizations (such as the Red Guards, plowing cooperatives, women’s representative conferences, etc.). They should also check whether the decisions of the previous representative conference have been implemented by the village representative directors and representatives, and how they have been implemented. Or they may decide on the agenda and rapporteur for the next representative conference, and prepare for the next representative conference. Relatively minor issues in the entire township’s work and matters requiring urgent resolution should be resolved at presidium meetings. Do not bring every minor issue to the representative conference. Do not delay urgent problems awaiting discussion until the next representative conference. Issues resolved by the presidium should be reported at the representative conference to inform the representatives and obtain their agreement.

16. Presidium meetings should have a schedule covering one or two months. The format of the schedule is as follows:

Participants | Rapporteur | Agenda | Meeting Date
--- | --- | --- | ---
Village Directors | Wang Shan, Head of Spring Plowing Committee | Work of the Plowing Cooperative | March 5
Committee Members | Li Zhenguo | Expanding the Red Army work, inspection | March 10
Village Directors | Township Chairperson | Preparation for the Representative Conference | March 15
Village Directors | Township Chairperson | Inspection of Spring Plowing Progress | March 20

The presidium works according to the schedule and distributes it to committee heads and village directors, so they know in advance what issues will be discussed on what dates. The schedule should not list too many issues for each meeting; one or two issues are quite sufficient, as there will surely be some minor or urgent matters to add temporarily. Presidium meetings should also not exceed two to three hours.

17. For the presidium to lead the entire township’s work, it must closely focus on the central tasks of each period and not get so caught up in trivial matters that the central tasks are lost. The presidium must understand the conditions of each village, recognize the characteristics of each village, and pay attention to the difficulties faced by the masses in each village. The presidium must pay attention to leading and promoting the work of the village representative directors, so that the representative conferences and mass meetings in each village can be held regularly and successfully.

18. The presidium must unite all representatives, committee members, and mass organizations around itself, motivating them to mobilize the entire township’s masses to carry out various tasks, rather than separating itself from the representatives, committees, and mass organizations, leaving a few people to work in a chaotic rush.

19. The presidium should pay attention to educating and training the representatives. Those among the representatives who are active and hardworking should be encouraged and praised at meetings, while those who are passive and slack in their work should be subjected to criticism and struggle. For those newly elected as representatives who do not know how to carry out their work, they should be properly instructed on how to do the work. Those who, after multiple criticisms, education, and struggles, do not change or improve, or who miss four or five consecutive meetings, should be brought to the representative conference for discussion and expelled, with alternate representatives filling the vacancies. Representatives who join the Red Army, are transferred, or leave the township for other reasons should also be immediately replaced.

(3) Village Organization and Work

20. The focus of township work should be on the villages, especially in sparsely populated areas. The new township Soviet should pay particular attention to village leadership and work.

21. Each township should be divided into administrative villages based on the distribution of settlements and population size. Generally, dividing each township into three to five villages is best; more than that is rather inconvenient.

22. Each administrative village shall have one village representative director, chosen from among the township Soviet representatives of that village. The most active and capable representative should be selected. If there are more than fifteen representatives in the village, an additional deputy representative director may be chosen. The representative director is responsible for leading and supervising all work in the village, with the deputy representative director assisting.

23. The village director should convene meetings of all township representatives in the village on schedule (once every ten days or half a month) to check on the work of each representative. Based on the conditions of each hamlet and household, discussions should be held on how to fulfill the tasks assigned to the village by the township representative conference, resolve minor disputes among the village residents, and provide mutual assistance and relief for difficulties. It is best to hold such village representative conferences between the sessions of the two township Soviet representative conferences.

24. In order to enable all representatives to take responsibility and lead the residents and masses in fulfilling all Soviet decisions and work, a method of dividing the leadership of residents among representatives must be implemented. For example, in a certain administrative village with a total of 500 residents and 20 representatives, these 500 residents would be divided into 20 units, each representative managing one unit. However, this should not be distributed evenly but should be allocated based on the location of dwellings and the ability of the representatives. Some representatives may manage more, some less. Each representative should be responsible for leading and supervising the residents and masses under their management to implement the various tasks and decisions of the Soviets (such as urging the several dozens of people under their management to work hard on spring plowing, publicizing among the active elements among these several dozens of people to join the Red Army, advocating for joining cooperatives, urging children to attend school, urging adults to attend evening school, urging households to clean their houses and pay attention to hygiene, keeping an eye on landlord and reactionary elements' activities, etc.) and gathering the opinions of the masses to bring to the village and township representative conferences for resolution.

25. Each representative should convene meetings for the several dozen people they manage, ideally once every half month. These meetings should take the form of discussions, held in the evening or during free time. At such meetings, examine how each household is carrying out Soviet work, discuss tasks to be undertaken, report on township Soviet resolutions, gather the opinions of the masses from two-village or township representative meeting reports, and the meetings can also conduct mutual criticism, such as why a certain person who was in the Red Army has returned but not rejoined the unit, why a certain household is not diligent in spring plowing, why someone is not actively helping the families of Red Army soldiers, or why an elderly person living alone in a certain household needs assistance but everyone is neglecting it, and so on. Such meetings can convey Soviet decisions most rapidly and widely, enabling Soviet work to proceed quickly and smoothly and bringing about swift improvements in the lives of the masses.

26. In addition to convening meetings, each representative, in guiding the several people they manage, should regularly pay visits to each household to see if there are any difficulties in their living conditions, how Soviet work is actually being implemented, and what issues need to be resolved. First and foremost, they should frequently visit the families of Red Army soldiers.

27. After the implementation of the system whereby representatives divide responsibilities for managing residents, village and township mass assemblies should not be convened frequently, except for major commemorative festivals and particularly significant issues.

(IV) Township Committees and Their Work

28. To involve more of the masses in the work of state power, various committees should be established under the township Soviet to separately manage and lead different tasks. These committees should be composed of township representatives and active elements from the masses, and every representative should participate in one or two committees.

29. Such committees should be divided into two types: those that exist on a permanent basis and those temporarily organized for specific issues. Permanent committees include those for expanding the Red Army, giving preferential treatment to the families of Red Army soldiers, culture and education, health, and grain. Temporary committees include those for land inspection, elections, and water conservancy construction. Such committees should be organized when the work is being carried out and dissolved once the work is completed.

30. The number of members on a committee should, depending on the nature of the work, range from a minimum of five to a maximum of seven to nine. Every village must have representation on the committee, because in this way the committee’s discussions and decisions can be transmitted very quickly to every village. The list of committee members and the chairperson should be proposed by the presidium and approved at the representative meeting. In addition to representatives, the list must include active elements from the masses who are not representatives.

33. The most active comrades (preferably representatives) should be selected as the chairpersons of each committee. The presidium should regularly inspect the work of each committee, listen to its reports, and educate and urge each chairperson to work and convene committee meetings. The township presidium should divide responsibilities to participate in the work of each committee.

32. Each committee should meet regularly, but the frequency of meetings should be determined by the urgency and importance of the work. For example, before and during the busy farming season, the spring plowing committee should meet more often. After the autumn harvest, during the slack farming season, committees such as the road committee and water conservancy committee should intensify their work.

33. Chairpersons should make preparations in advance before their committees convene initial meetings, so that each meeting can yield results. After the meeting, they should assign each committee member a part of the work, tell them how to do it, and require them to report on their work at the next meeting.

(V) The Township Soviet’s Connection with and Leadership over Mass Organizations

34. The township Soviet should strengthen its assistance to and leadership over the various mass organizations in the township (such as trade unions, poor peasant corps, women’s representative assemblies, children’s corps, labor mutual-aid societies, various cooperatives, literacy campaign committees, etc.) and rely on them to diligently mobilize the broad masses to accomplish all kinds of revolutionary work. In particular, the township Soviet should take responsibility for inspecting and leading organizations such as the poor peasant corps, women’s representative assemblies, and labor mutual-aid groups, because they do not have direct higher-level organizations.

35. When a representative meeting or the presidium discusses issues related to a particular mass organization, the responsible person from that organization should be invited to participate. When each organization holds meetings, the township Soviet should also send someone to attend. The presidium may also listen to the work reports of various mass organizations.

36. The township Soviet should pay attention to leading the Red Guards and the Young Pioneers, ensuring that all men and women join. It should focus on their training and ensure that the Red Guards and Young Pioneers fully undertake the red alert duties of posting sentries and checking travel permits.

Additional Note: Most of the above work provisions are applicable to central regions. Although township Soviets in border areas can generally also use them, special attention should be paid to: (I) leading guerrilla groups for external guerrilla operations; (II) carrying out work within White Army and bandit units; (III) strengthening red alerts and grain storage; (IV) opening up new Soviet areas toward the White areas.