OF WORK

January 27, 1934

[This was part of the concluding speech made by Comrade Mao Tse-tung at the
Second National Congress of Workers' and Peasants' Representatives held in
Juichin, Kiangsi Province in January 1934.]


There are two questions which comrades have failed to stress during the
discussion and which, I feel, should be dealt with.

The first concerns the well-being of the masses.

Our central task at present is to mobilize the broad masses to take part
in the revolutionary war, overthrow imperialism and the Kuomintang by means
of such war, spread the revolution throughout the country, and drive imperialism
out of China Anyone who does not attach enough importance to this central
task is not a good revolutionary cadre. If our comrades really comprehend
this task and understand that the revolution must at all costs be spread
throughout the country, then they should in no way neglect or underestimate
the question of the immediate interests, the well-being, of the broad masses.
For the revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by
mobilizing the masses and relying on them.

If we only mobilize the people to carry on the war and do nothing else, can
we succeed in defeating the enemy? Of course not. If we want to win, we must
do a great deal more. We must lead the peasants' struggle for land and distribute
the land to them, heighten their labour enthusiasm and increase agricultural
production, safeguard the interests of the workers, establish co-operatives,
develop trade with outside areas, and solve the problems facing the masses--
food, shelter and clothing, fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt, sickness and
hygiene, and marriage. In short, all the practical problems in the masses'
everyday life should claim our attention. If we attend to these problems,
solve them and satisfy the needs of the masses, we shall really become organizers
of the well-being of the masses, and they will truly rally round us and give
us their warm support. Comrades, will we then be able to arouse them to take
part in the revolutionary war? Yes, indeed we will.

Here is the kind of thing we have found among some of our cadres. They talk
only about expanding the Red Army, enlarging the transport corps, collecting
the land tax and selling bonds; as for other matters, they neither discuss
nor attend to them, and even ignore them altogether. For instance, there
was a time when the Tingchow Municipal Government concerned itself only with
the expansion of the Red Army and with mobilization for the transport corps
and paid not the slightest attention to the well-being of the masses. The
problems facing the people of Tingchow city were that they had no firewood,
no salt was on sale because the capitalists were hoarding it, some people
had no houses to live in, and rice was both scarce and dear. These were practical
problems for the masses of the people of Tingchow and they eagerly looked
to us for help in solving them. But the Tingchow Municipal Government did
not discuss any of these matters. That is why when the new workers' and peasants'
representative council was elected in the city, a hundred or more representatives
were unwilling to attend after the first few council meetings had discussed
only the expansion of the Red Army and mobilization for the transport corps,
entirely ignoring the well-being of the masses, so that the council was unable
to go on meeting. The result was that very little was achieved in regard
to the expansion of the Red Army and mobilization for the transport corps.
That was one kind of situation.

Comrades! You have probably read the pamphlets given you about two model
townships. There the situation is entirely different. What a great number
of people have joined the Red Army from Changkang Township in Kiangsi
[1] and Tsaihsi Township in Fukien![2]
In Changkang 80 per cent of the young men and women have joined the Red Army,
and in Tsaihsi the figure is 88 per cent. There has been a big sale of bonds,
too, and 4,500 yuan worth have been sold in Changkang which has a population
of 1,500. Much has also been done in other fields. What accounts for this?
A few examples will make the point clear. In Changkang when
fire broke out in a poor peasant's house destroying one and a half rooms,
the township government appealed to the masses to contribute money to help
him. In another instance, three persons were starving, so the township government
and the mutual-aid society immediately gave them rice. During the food shortage
last summer, the township government obtained rice from Kunglueh
County,[3] more than two hundred li away, for
the relief of the masses. Excellent work was done along these lines in Tsaihsi
as well. Such township governments are really models. They are absolutely
different from the Tingchow Municipal Government with its bureaucratic methods
of leadership. We should learn from Changkang and Tsaihsi Townships and oppose
bureaucratic leaders like those in Tingchow city.

I earnestly suggest to this congress that we pay close attention to the
well-being of the masses, from the problems of land and labour to those of
fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt. The women want to learn ploughing and
harrowing. Whom can we get to teach them? The children want to go to school.
Have we set up primary schools? The wooden bridge over there is too narrow
and people may fall off. Should we not repair it? Many people suffer from
boils and other ailments. What are we going to do about it? All such problems
concerning the well-being of the masses should be placed on our agenda. We
should discuss them, adopt and carry out decisions and check up on the results.
We should convince the masses that we represent their interests, that our
lives are intimately bound up with theirs. We should help them to proceed
from these things to an understanding of the higher tasks which we have put
forward, the tasks of the revolutionary war, so that they will support the
revolution and spread it throughout the country, respond to our political
appeals and fight to the end for victory in the revolution. The masses in
Changkang say, "The Communist Party is really good! It has thought of everything
on our behalf." The comrades in Changkang Township are an example to all
of us. What admirable people! They have won the genuine affection of the
broad masses, who support their call for war mobilization. Do we want to
win the support of the masses? Do we want them to devote their strength to
the front? If so, we must be with them, arouse their enthusiasm and initiative,
be concerned with their well-being, work earnestly and sincerely in their
interests and solve all their problems of production and everyday life--the
problems of salt, rice, housing, clothing, childbirth, etc. If we do so,
the masses will surely support us and regard the revolution as their most
glorious banner, as their very life. In the event of a Kuomintang attack
on the Red areas they will fight the Kuomintang to the death. There can be
no doubt about this, for is it not a plain fact that we have smashed the
enemy's first, second, third and fourth "encirclement and suppression" campaigns?

The Kuomintang is now pursuing a policy of blockhouse
warfare,[4] feverishly constructing their "tortoise-shells"
as though they were iron bastions. Comrades! Are they really iron bastions?
Not in the least! Think of the palaces of the feudal emperors over
thousands of years, were they not powerful with their walls and moats?
Yet they crumbled one after another the moment the masses arose. The tsar
of Russia was one of the world's most ferocious rulers, yet when the proletariat
and the peasantry rose in revolution, was there anything left of him? No,
nothing. His bastions of iron? They all crumbled. Comrades! What is a true
bastion of iron? It is the masses, the millions upon millions of people who
genuinely and sincerely support the revolution. That is the real iron bastion
which no force can smash, no force whatsoever. The counter-revolution cannot
smash us; on the contrary, we shall smash it. Rallying millions upon millions
of people round the revolutionary government and expanding our revolutionary
war we shall wipe out all counter-revolution and take over the whole of China.

The second question concerns our methods of work.

We are the leaders and organizers of the revolutionary war as well as the
leaders and organizers of the life of the masses. To organize the revolutionary
war and to improve the life of the masses are our two major tasks. In this
respect, we are faced with the serious problem of methods of work. It is
not enough to set tasks, we must also solve the problem of the methods for
carrying them out. If our task is to cross a river, we cannot cross it without
a bridge or a boat. Unless the bridge or boat problem is solved, it is idle
to speak of crossing the river. Unless the problem of method is solved, talk
about the task is useless. Unless we pay attention to giving leadership to
the work of expanding the Red Army and devote particular care to our methods,
we will never succeed even though we recite the phrase "Expand the Red Army"
a thousand times. Nor can we accomplish our tasks in any other field, for
instance, in checking up on land distribution, or in economic construction,
or culture and education, or our work in the new areas and the outlying
districts, if all we do is to set the tasks without attending to the methods
of carrying them out, without combating bureaucratic methods of work and
adopting practical and concrete ones, and without discarding commandist methods
and adopting the method of patient persuasion.

The comrades in Hsingkuo have done first-rate work and deserve our praise
as model workers. Similarly, the comrades in northeastern Kiangsi have done
good work and are also model workers. By linking the problem of the well-being
of the masses with that of the revolutionary war, the comrades in both these
places are simultaneously solving the problems of revolutionary methods of
work and of accomplishing their revolutionary tasks. They are working
conscientiously, solving problems with minute care and shouldering their
revolutionary responsibilities in earnest; they are good organizers and leaders
both of revolutionary war and of the well-being of the masses. Elsewhere,
too, the comrades have made progress in their work and deserve our praise--as
in some parts of the counties of Shanghang, Changting and Yungting in Fukien
Province; in Hsikiang and other places in southern Kiangsi Province; in some
parts of the counties of Chaling, Yunghsin and Kian in the Hunan-Kiangsi
border area; in some parts of Yanghsin County in the Hunan-Hupeh-Kiangsi
border area; in districts and townships of many other counties in Kiangsi
Province and in the county of Juichin which is directly under our central
government.

In all the places under our leadership, there are undoubtedly many active
cadres, excellent comrades, who have sprung from the masses. These comrades
have a responsibility to help in places where our work is weak and to help
comrades who are not yet able to work well. We are in the midst of a great
revolutionary war; we must break through the enemy's large-scale "encirclement
and suppression" and spread the revolution to all parts of the country. All
revolutionary cadres have a tremendous responsibility. After this congress
we must adopt effective measures to improve our work, the advanced areas
should become even more advanced, and the backward areas should catch up
with the advanced. We must create thousands of townships like Changkang and
scores of counties like Hsingkuo. They will be our strongholds. From these
strongholds we should go forth to smash the enemy's "encirclement and
suppression" campaigns and overthrow the rule of imperialism and the Kuomintang
throughout the country.
NOTES
1. Changkang Township is in Hsingkuo County, Kiangsi Province.

2. Tsaihsi Township is in Shanghang County, Pukien Province.

3. Kunglueh County was then in the Red area in Kiangsi,
with the town of Tungku lying southeast of Kian County as its centre. It
was named after Comrade Huang Kung-lueh, Commander of the Third Army Corps
of the Red Army, who laid down his life there in October 1931.

4. The building of blockhouses round the Red areas was
decided upon by Chiang Kai-shek at his military conference held at Lushan,
Kiangsi Province in July 1933, as a new military tactic for his fifth
"encirclement and suppression" campaign. By the end of January 1934 an estimated
total of 2,900 blockhouses had been built in Kiangsi Province. The Japanese
aggressors later adopted the same tactic against the Eighth Route and the
New Fourth Armies. Experience fully proved that the counter-revolutionary
tactic of using blockhouses could be completely foiled and defeated by adhering
to Comrade Mao Tse-tung's strategy of people's war.

Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.