Mao Zedong on the Fundamental Policy of the Red Army Moving Close to Outer Mongolia and Other Issues

(December 1, 1935)

Comrade Luo Fu:

Your letters of the 20th and the 25th have both arrived.

A. Regarding the fundamental policy of the Red Army moving close to Outer Mongolia, I am in complete agreement. This is because this policy is the correct one for enabling the Chinese revolutionary war, especially the anti-Japanese national war which will soon break out, to gain greater strength and develop more rapidly. What I disagree with is the question of timing and route. First, the Red Army must at present increase its strength by ten thousand men. Within four months, we must rely on the Northern Shaanxi Soviet Area and exert unprecedented efforts to achieve this objective. Second, it is best to take the route through Shanxi and Suiyuan [1], using warfare and development, and employing a policy that does not cause the Northern Shaanxi Soviet Area to become detached from us, to move close to Outer Mongolia. To accomplish the above two tasks, I think a period of about six months will suffice. Therefore, we should move close to Outer Mongolia in the summer or autumn of next year, and at present we should immediately begin organizing guerrilla units of the Mongol people.

B. I fully agree with the strategic content and the specific slogans and programme of the anti-Chiang Kai-shek, anti-Japanese united front. Please issue the declaration [2] immediately.

C. I basically agree with the change in strategy towards the rich peasants, but the resolution [3] should point out that when the struggle

[1] Suiyuan, name of a former province, encompassing the central region of today's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, abolished in 1954.
[2] Refers to the Declaration on Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation issued on November 28, 1935, by the Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic and the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
[3] On December 6, 1935, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Decision on Changing the Strategy towards the Rich Peasants."

develops and the poor and middle peasants demand the equal distribution of rich peasant land, the Party should support this demand. Rich peasants may receive land equal to that of poor and middle peasants; the past principle of distributing only poor-quality land was incorrect. However, the principle of leaving rich peasant land completely untouched is also incorrect in the Soviet areas, especially in the southern Soviet areas. On the land question, there should be a slight distinction between the strategy towards rich peasants and that towards middle peasants. The Party in the countryside should be adept at leading and supervising the rich peasants and strictly guard against being led by them. It must be pointed out that when the struggle deepens, the rich peasants will inevitably switch to the landlord camp; this is a characteristic of the semi-feudal rich peasant stratum in China. Towards members of the small landlord stratum who have labour capacity but have gone bankrupt, they should be treated as rich peasants with the consent of the masses.

D. The policy of not killing any captured officers, treating them well, and releasing them has already been implemented here. My letter to Dong Yingbin [1] has been widely published, and work to broadly disintegrate the White Army is now underway.

E. I may return to the rear in a few days.

Zedong

24:00 hours, the 1st

[1] Refers to Mao Zedong's letter of November 26, 1935, to Dong Yingbin, Commander of the 7th Column (57th Army) of the 2nd Route of the Kuomintang Army's Northwest "Bandit Suppression" General Headquarters. The letter stated: (1) If the Northeast Army does not attack the Red Army, the Red Army will also not attack the Northeast Army; (2) For all those willing to resist Japan and oppose Chiang Kai-shek, regardless of whether they have fought the Red Army in the past, the Red Army is willing to conclude treaties with them to jointly fight Japan and Chiang Kai-shek; (3) The Red Army treats officers and soldiers of the Northeast Army well; not only are none to be killed, but they are to be assigned posts or provided with funds to return to their units, and wounded officers and soldiers are to receive medical treatment identical to that given to wounded Red Army personnel.