Directive on Rent Reduction, Production, Support for the Government and Cherishing the People, and Propagation of the Ten Major Policies[1]

(October 1, 1943)

(1) The autumn harvest has arrived, and the leading organs in all base areas must instruct Party and government organs at all levels to examine the implementation of the rent reduction policy. Wherever rent reduction has not been earnestly carried out, it must be carried out this year without exception. Where it has been carried out but not thoroughly, it must be carried out thoroughly this year. Party committees should immediately issue directives based on the central land policy and local conditions, personally inspect a few villages, discover models, and promote them elsewhere. At the same time, editorials on rent reduction and reports on model experiences in rent reduction should be published in newspapers. Rent reduction is a mass struggle of the peasants; the Party's directives and the government's decrees are to lead and assist this mass struggle, not to bestow favors upon the masses. Any bestowal of rent reduction that does not arouse the initiative of the masses is incorrect, and its results will not be consolidated. In the struggle for rent reduction, peasant organizations should be established or reformed. The government should stand on the position of enforcing rent reduction decrees and mediating the interests of landlords and tenants. Now that the base areas have shrunk, our Party's task of carefully, earnestly, and thoroughly winning over the masses within the base areas, and sharing life and death, survival and extinction with them, has an even more urgent significance than in the past six years. If this autumn we can examine the extent to which the rent reduction policy has been implemented and carry out thorough rent reduction, we can enhance the initiative of the peasant masses, strengthen next year's struggle against the enemy, and promote next year's production campaign.

(2) The majority of cadres in all base areas behind enemy lines have not yet learned to push Party and government personnel,

[1] This is an inner-Party directive drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

army personnel, and the popular masses (all public and private, military and civilian, men and women, old and young, with absolutely no exceptions) to carry out large-scale production. The Party committees, governments, and armies must, this autumn and winter, prepare for a large-scale production campaign next year throughout the base areas, based on self-reliance and overcoming difficulties (except for the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, the slogan of ample food and clothing is not to be raised for the time being), encompassing public and private agriculture, industry, handicrafts, transport, animal husbandry, and commerce, with agriculture as the mainstay. Implement household plans, labor mutual aid (called "labor exchange teams" in northern Shaanxi, formerly called "plowing teams" or "labor mutual aid cooperatives" in the former Red areas of Jiangxi), reward labor heroes, hold production competitions, and develop cooperatives that serve the masses. Party and government functionaries at the county and district levels, on questions of finance and economics, should devote 90 percent of their energy to helping the peasants increase production, and then use 10 percent of their energy to collect taxes from the peasants. If painstaking effort is applied to the former, the latter will be easily accomplished. All organs, schools, and army units must, under wartime conditions, strictly practice growing vegetables, raising pigs, gathering firewood, making charcoal, developing handicrafts, and growing part of their own grain. In addition to all large and small units uniformly developing collective production, simultaneously encourage all individuals (except those in the army) to engage in personal spare-time production in small-scale agriculture and handicrafts (engaging in trade is prohibited), with the income belonging to the individual. All localities should open seven-to-ten-day training classes for vegetable growing, pig raising, and for cooks to improve meals. In all Party, government, and army organs, stress frugality, oppose waste, and prohibit embezzlement. All leading personnel in Party, government, and army organs and schools at all levels must learn the complete set of skills for leading the masses in production. Anyone who does not pay attention to studying production is not a good leader. All military and civilian personnel who do not pay attention to production but instead are fond of eating and lazy in work are not good soldiers or good citizens. All rural Party members who have not left production should regard developing production as one of the conditions for serving as models for the masses. In the production campaign, the conservative and purely fiscal viewpoint of not emphasizing economic development but calculating only one-sidedly on expenditure issues is wrong. The viewpoint of not organizing the broad labor power of the Party, government, army, and popular masses to launch a mass production campaign, but only paying one-sided attention to a small number of government personnel busying themselves with collecting grain and taxes, raising money and food, is wrong. The viewpoint of not knowing how to use full effort to help the masses develop production, but only knowing how to demand grain and money from the masses (the Guomindang viewpoint), is wrong. The viewpoint of not paying attention to launching the mass production campaign comprehensively, but only

paying one-sided attention to organizing a small number of people to engage in production through a few economic organs, is wrong. The viewpoint that considers it dishonorable and immoral for Communist Party members to engage in household production and personal spare-time production for the purpose of supplying their family livelihood (rural Party members) and improving their own lives (Party members in organs and schools) in order to benefit the revolutionary cause, is wrong. Under conditions where base areas exist, the viewpoint of not advocating the development of production and, under the conditions of developing production, struggling to improve material life, but only one-sidedly advocating hard struggle and plain living, is wrong. The viewpoint of not regarding cooperatives as economic organizations serving the masses, but regarding them as means for a few functionaries to make money and seek profit, or as government-run commercial shops, is wrong. The viewpoint of not promoting the model labor methods of some agricultural labor heroes in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region (labor mutual aid, more plowing, more hoeing, more manuring) in various places, but claiming that these methods cannot be implemented in certain base areas, is wrong. The viewpoint of not implementing, in the production campaign, the combination of leadership responsibility by heads, self-reliance, integration of the leading core with the broad masses, integration of general calls with specific guidance, investigation and research, differentiating between urgent and non-urgent, important and less important matters, striving to include men and women, old and young, and vagrants all in production, training cadres, educating the masses, but only knowing how to assign production tasks to the director of construction, the minister of supply, or the head of general affairs, is wrong. Under current conditions, the central link in developing production is organizing labor power. In every base area, organizing the labor power of tens of thousands in the Party, government, and army and the labor power of hundreds of thousands of people (adopting forms such as household plans, labor exchange teams, transport teams, mutual aid societies, cooperatives, etc., organizing full and half labor power on the principles of voluntariness and equal exchange of value) to engage in production is both possible and absolutely necessary even under the present circumstances of war. Communists must learn all the principles and methods of organizing labor power. The uniform and thorough rent reduction in all base areas this year will be a stimulus for the large-scale development of production next year. And next year, the great production campaign uniformly carried out by all, Party, government, military, and civilian, men and women, old and young, to increase grain and daily necessities and prepare to struggle against famine, will be the material foundation for continuing to persist in the anti-Japanese base areas. Otherwise, extreme difficulties will be encountered.

(3) In order to integrate the Party, government, and army with the people, so as to facilitate the unfolding of next year's struggle against the enemy and the production campaign, the Party committees and military and political leading organs in all base areas should prepare to hold, universally and without exception, a large-scale mass campaign of "Support the Government and Cherish the People" and "Support the Army and Give Preferential Treatment to the Families of Anti-Japanese Soldiers"[1] in the first month of next year's lunar calendar. On the army's side, re-proclaim the convention on supporting the government and cherishing the people, hold self-criticism meetings, convene get-togethers with residents (with local Party and government participation), and where the masses' interests have been harmed, carry out compensation and apology. On the masses' side, led by the local Party, government, and mass organizations, re-proclaim the convention on supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to the families of anti-Japanese soldiers, and hold warm campaigns to comfort the army. In the campaign of supporting the government and cherishing the people and supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to the families of anti-Japanese soldiers, thoroughly examine the shortcomings and mistakes of both the army side and the Party and government side in 1943, and resolutely correct them in 1944. Henceforth, this should be universally held once every year in the first month, repeatedly proclaiming the convention on supporting the government and cherishing the people and the convention on supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to the families of anti-Japanese soldiers, repeatedly carrying out open, mass-based self-criticism (each side criticizing only itself, not the other side) regarding the shortcomings and mistakes that have occurred in various base areas, such as the army bullying or oppressing the Party, government, and people, and the Party, government, and people showing insufficient concern for the army, and thoroughly correcting them.

(4) This directive mainly explains the importance of rent reduction this year, production next year, and the campaign of supporting the government and cherishing the people to be held next spring. Other policies have been addressed in successive directives and will not be reiterated here. However, it should be known: Among the various policies implemented by our Party in the base areas, the most crucial ones at present total ten. These ten policies are: First, struggle against the enemy; Second, better troops and simpler administration; Third, unified leadership; Fourth, support the government and cherish the people; Fifth, develop production; Sixth, rectify the three styles; Seventh, examine cadres; Eighth, education on current events; Ninth, the "Three-Thirds System"; Tenth, reduction of rent and interest. These ten major policies are interconnected and indivisible. This autumn and winter, all Central Bureaus, Central Sub-Bureaus, Regional Party Committees, and Prefectural Party Committees must make a year-end summary for 1943 on these ten major policies (no need to convene very large or very long meetings, just review the ten major policies one by one). At the same time, the idea of the interconnected unity of the ten major policies must be universally propagated within the Party, so that the whole Party, and primarily the cadres, understand that only by implementing these interconnected and unified ten major policies completely, and not in a fragmentary manner (for example, saying that in a certain place there is no need to implement supporting the government and cherishing the people

[1] "Support the Government and Cherish the People" is the abbreviation of the slogan for army personnel in the anti-Japanese base areas to "support the government and cherish the people." "Support the Army and Give Preferential Treatment to the Families of Anti-Japanese Soldiers" is the abbreviation of the slogan for the functionaries of Party and government organs, mass organizations, and the popular masses in the anti-Japanese base areas to "support the army and give preferential treatment to the families of anti-Japanese soldiers."

and Wu Manyou's[1] production methods, etc.), earnestly and not in a crude and careless manner, can we achieve the goal of overcoming difficulties and welcoming the bright future. However, as long as all comrades in the Party earnestly implement these ten major policies, we will certainly be able to create many favorable conditions and achieve the goal of overcoming difficulties and welcoming the bright future. We have every confidence in overcoming difficulties, our future is infinitely bright, we will certainly defeat Japanese imperialism and establish a new China of freedom and equality!


[1] Wu Manyou, a native of Hengshan, Shaanxi, fled famine to Yan'an to farm. In 1942, during the Great Production Campaign, he worked hard to reclaim wasteland and increase production, becoming a labor hero in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region.