Letter to Qin Bangxian1
(September 11, 1943)
Comrade Bo Gu:
The second part of [V. N.] Rogov’s article is extremely important; please run it in
tomorrow’s newspaper and also broadcast it. The day after tomorrow, please
publish Rogov’s entire article (both the first and second parts) again in the
editorial section under the title “Criticism of the Chinese Government” and put
Rogov’s name at the bottom, with a short note next to it saying: “Rogov is the
head of the Chinese branch of TASS, the Soviet news agency. His essay seriously
criticizing the Chinese government appeared in the August 8 issue of the
magazine War and the Working Classes, published in Moscow. Our newspaper
has previously published it in two separate parts. We are printing it here again so
that our readers can read it through in its entirety. This essay by Rogov has been
widely printed in American and British newspapers and has attracted attention
from people all over the world. It has also been warmly received by truly
patriotic Chinese in Chongqing. This truly is the first time in the six years of the
War of Resistance that a Soviet personage has given a systematic critique of the
Chinese government, and this criticism is in complete harmony with the opinions
of the Chinese Communist Party and with those of true patriots. We hope that
the Guomindang authorities will not ignore impartial international and domestic
public opinion and will diligently correct its mistakes. Doing so will greatly
benefit the future of the War of Resistance. Rogov’s complete essay follows.”2 The
title should be in especially large type. The note and the text should be in no. 4
size font. The essay should also be broadcast once or twice. Especially attend to
ensuring that [Dong] Biwu3 receives it, and ask him to print and distribute as
many copies as possible in Chongqing (I will send him a telegram).

Mao Zedong
Notes
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan, pp. 110–11, where it is taken from
the manuscript.
1. Regarding Qin Bangxian, see above, note to Mao’s letter to He Kaifeng, September 15, 1942.
2. Rogov’s article was published in full in the September 14, 1943, issue of Jiefang ribao, p. 1.
3. Regarding Dong Biwu, see above, note to the text of July 21, 1943. He was at this time working in the
Liaison Office of the Eighth Route Army in Chongqing; for details on Dong, see also the note to the text
“Congratulatory Speech at the Mass Meeting,” January 15, 1940, in Vol. VII, pp. 370–71.

Directive of the Politburo of the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party Regarding Reducing Rent,
Production, Supporting the Government
and Cherishing the People, and
Propagandizing the Ten Major Policies1
(October 1, 1943)
1. Autumn harvest has arrived. The base areas2 must ask Party and
government organizations at all levels to check on the application of our policy of
rent reduction. Wherever rent reduction has not truly been carried out, rents
must be reduced this year without exception. Wherever this work has not been
thorough, it must be done thoroughly this year. Party committees should
immediately issue directives based on the agrarian policy of the Central
Committee and in conformity with local conditions, and they should inspect a
few villages first hand, select3 good examples, and thereby expedite the work in
other places. At the same time, the press should carry editorials on rent reduction
and reports of good examples. Rent reduction is a mass struggle by the peasants,
and party directives and government decrees should guide and help the mass
struggle instead of trying to bestow favors on the masses. It is wrong to bestow
rent reduction as a favor instead of arousing the spontaneous enthusiasm of the
masses to achieve it by their own action, and the results will not be solid. Peasant
organizations should be formed or reconstituted in the struggle for rent
reduction. The government’s position should be one of enforcing the decree on

rent reduction and adjusting the relative interests of the landlords and the
tenants. Now that the base areas have shrunk in size, it is of more immediate
importance than at any time in the past six years for the Party to win the masses
there by patient, conscientious, and thorough work, and to share weal and woe
with them. If during this autumn we check on how far the policy has been
carried out and perform the task of rent reduction thoroughly, we will be able to
arouse the initiative of the peasant masses and, in the coming year, intensify our
struggle against the enemy and give impetus to next year’s production campaign.
2. In the base areas behind enemy lines, the majority of cadres have not yet
learned how to mobilize the masses in the Party, government, and military, and
the popular masses (including everyone—men and women, old and young,
soldiers and civilians, and people in public and private employment) to carry out
wide-scale production campaigns. This autumn and winter, Party committees,
the government, and military troops in each base area must prepare to launch
wide-scale production campaigns next year, each covering an entire base area, in
which everyone works to overcome difficulties (except in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, the slogan “ample food and clothing” should not be used
for the time being). These campaigns will encompass both private- and publicsector farming, industry, handi-crafts, transportation, animal husbandry, and
commerce, with the main emphasis on farming. Carry out planning household by
household and mutual aid in labor (known as labor-exchange teams in northern
Shaanxi and once known as plowing teams or mutual-aid groups4 in the former
soviet areas5 in Jiangxi). Carry out Wu Manyou (a farming labor hero), Zhao
Zhankui (an industrial labor hero), and Huang Lide (a vegetable-growing hero of
organizations and schools) movements. Reward labor heroes, hold production
competitions, and promote cooperatives to serve the masses. In the financial and
economic fields, Party and government personnel at the xian and regional levels
should devote nine-tenths of their energy to helping the peasants increase
production, and only one-tenth to collecting taxes from them. If pains are taken
with the first task, the second will be easy. Under the present conditions of war,
all organizations, schools, and troops must make great efforts to grow vegetables,
raise pigs, collect firewood, make charcoal, expand handicrafts, and grow part of
their own grain supply. In addition to developing collective production, every
unit, large or small, must also reward all individuals (except troops) who engage