No. 1948217: After reviewing your report, I offer the following views on the issues you have raised. In the old revolutionary base areas, wherever land has already been equally distributed and the economic foundation of landlords and rich peasants has been eliminated—though not yet entirely so—and where only minor adjustments are needed to address localized land shortages, further equal distribution should be avoided. Instead, a rational system of land redistribution—taking from some and giving to others—should be adopted to meet the limited land demands of certain peasants. To attempt another round of equal land distribution in such areas would be a mistake.

In these regions, it is advisable to establish poor-peasant groups within the peasant associations to safeguard the interests of poor and hired laborers. Within the peasant association committees, at peasant representative conferences, and in local governments, poor and hired laborers together with the new middle peasants should constitute approximately one-third of the membership, thereby ensuring their leadership role in the countryside. At the same time, the established middle peasants should also occupy about one-third of the positions. This approach is highly appropriate.

However, in areas where poor and hired laborers are in the minority while both new and established middle peasants form the majority, organizing separate poor-peasant organizations and forcing them to direct all activities would violate the line laid down by the National Land Conference and constitute an extremely adventurist, commandist practice. If any of your work teams or task forces are still engaging in such practices, they should be immediately halted, recalled for retraining, and then redeployed to resume work based on the specific local conditions. Please pay close attention to this matter.

Secondly, in addition to the old and new base areas, there exist semi-old areas situated between the two. In these semi-old areas, the land question has not been resolved as thoroughly as in the old areas; yet they are in a better position than the new areas, where the problem remains either entirely unresolved or largely unaddressed. The working guidelines for these semi-old areas should differ both from those applicable to the old areas and from those for the new areas. I urge you to study this issue carefully and to inform me in writing of your findings.  Mao Zedong