Organize the Labor Force!*
(January 25, 1943)

Production is the central task in the Border Region at present, and agricultural production is even more the center of the entire production effort. To accomplish this task, we must first rely on the more than 300,000 full able-bodied laborers and more than 300,000 semi-able-bodied laborers in the rural areas of the Border Region. Once organized, these six to seven hundred thousand people will become a robust production army and will generate incomparably abundant strength.

However, to better organize the several hundred thousand laborers in the rural areas of the Border Region, many effective measures must be adopted, one of which is to implement labor mutual aid.

In the rural areas of the Border Region, various forms of labor allocation have always existed, such as "labor exchange" and "labor pooling," which are relatively widespread practices. Although spontaneous "labor exchange" and "labor pooling" are narrow in scope, limited to relationships among relatives, friends, and neighbors, they are suited to the actual conditions of the rural Border Region. If we can guide them according to circumstances and provide planned organization and leadership, they can become organizations that bring labor power into play and raise production. To prove this point, the valuable experience of Yan'an County is worth recounting. Last year, Yan'an County organized a total of 487 "labor pooling" groups, additionally absorbing 4,939 able-bodied laborers into collective labor, accounting for almost one-third of the total labor force—meaning one out of every three people participated in collective labor. During land reclamation, collective labor demonstrated great strength. Last year, Yan'an County needed to reclaim 80,000 mu of land in 100 days, requiring 800 mu to be reclaimed daily. From March 10 to before April 19, only 15,000 mu had been reclaimed, accounting for just 18.7 percent of the total task, leaving 65,000 mu still to be done, but two-thirds of the time had already passed. Therefore, after the rain they launched a 20-day campaign to reclaim wasteland. In those 20 days, they actually completed 46,442 mu, accounting for 58 percent of the total task. If Yan'an County had not organized its labor force in a timely manner, it would have had no way to seize the excellent opportunity after the rain to launch a campaign, and the 80,000 mu reclamation plan could not have been completed.

We know that in farming, the most important thing is not to miss the farming season. Sowing early or late produces different results, and harvesting early or late also brings different yields. To achieve this through isolated and scattered labor alone is extremely difficult. But with labor mutual aid, the situation is quite different. By organizing the manpower and animal power of three to five or seven to eight households together, everyone helps you plow today, and helps me sow tomorrow. Whichever plot has the most weeds gets hoed first; whichever family's crops ripen earliest gets harvested first. In labor exchanges, it is not only person-for-person exchanges, but three person-days can also be exchanged for one team of oxen-days, so that those with manpower contribute manpower and those with animal power contribute animal power, more gives more, less gives less, thus balancing manpower and animal power. Only in this way can we avoid missing the farming season.

Experience proves that mutual-aid collective forms of production organization can save labor. For example, one laborer can cultivate 15 shang of land in a year, but if three laborers work together, they can cultivate 70 shang. Two laborers with one team of oxen can complete in three days a task that would require three laborers and one team of oxen to complete in two days. Moreover, mutual-aid collective forms of production can greatly raise labor enthusiasm and increase production efficiency, because when people work together, the atmosphere is lively, and everyone encourages and competes with each other, with no one willing to fall behind.

Precisely because this kind of mutual-aid collective labor organization can avoid missing the farming season, balance and save manpower and animal power, raise labor enthusiasm, increase labor efficiency, and develop the masses' spirit of unity and mutual aid, it has won the support of the masses.

The popular forms of labor mutual aid organization among the people are mainly labor exchange and labor pooling, but they are not limited to these two forms. For example, labor hero Wu Manyou neither pools labor nor often exchanges it; he ordinarily helps the immigrant refugees in his village, and when the farming season gets busy, those immigrant refugees voluntarily help him work. Forms such as shared oxen and shared land cultivation are also mutual aid in nature. These popular organizations are very vivid, concrete, and practical in content, and all should be promptly promoted.

We must learn from the model of Yan'an County. We should not only encourage the organization of labor pooling groups, but even more extensively organize labor exchange teams, transforming from old narrower organizations to new organized labor exchange teams. We must first, in this year's spring plowing, greatly expand these labor mutual aid organizations, organizing all those with labor power, the strong, the weak, children, and women, into them.

But here we must be attentive: labor mutual aid organizations must be built on the voluntary basis of the masses, preventing any form of compulsion or formalism. If we forcibly organize people who do not understand the benefits of mutual aid, production efficiency and labor zeal will not increase but will actually decline.

Furthermore, organizing labor mutual aid is a most vivid and concrete matter, and we absolutely must not disregard local actual conditions. Labor exchange teams should not be too large; it is best to take the natural village as the unit. For villages with a large population and greater need for mutual aid, we should start first with them. We should not organize just one team but can organize several or even dozens. Nor should we be limited to one village; we can go beyond the natural village and implement mutual aid between villages.

For the leadership of labor mutual aid, we must go through careful selection by the masses, publicly electing those who have prestige among the masses, are active in production, and have good ideas to take the lead. Our village cadres and Party members should first join in, or even use Party small groups as the backbone to organize labor pooling teams and play an exemplary and promotional role. Our rural Party branches, township governments, and mass organization workers must regard organizing mass production as their own work, the most important work they do. Some comrades think that the masses will handle these things themselves, no need for us to worry. This incorrect viewpoint must be strictly corrected.

Today, the period of Four Nines is almost over, and people often say: when spring arrives at the start of Six Nines, plows and oxen are everywhere. Let us quickly organize this great production army, grasp spring plowing, not miss the farming season, and complete the great task of agricultural production!