Directive on the Question of Confiscating the Land and Property of Traitors and Leaders of Insurrections[1]
(July 20, 1940)

The land and property of traitorous leaders and the ringleaders of reactionary elements participating in insurrections may be confiscated and handed over to the democratic political power for concrete handling. However, this must be done with extreme prudence, targeting only a very small number of individual traitorous leaders and leaders who instigate insurrections, and it must undergo formal judgment by the local revolutionary political power and win the support of the masses. It must not become a case of confiscating the property and land of all traitors, all reactionary elements, and all die-hards, turning into a fairly widespread movement of confiscating land and distributing land. It is further pointed out that we must exert the utmost effort to expand united front work, draw in all vacillating elements, and strike only at that certain part which is currently directly attacking us, in order to temporarily neutralize the remaining parts.

[1] This is the main content of a directive issued by Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Wang Jiaxiang on the question of confiscating the land and property of traitors and leaders of insurrections.