Application of the Tactics for the Land
Reform Struggle in the Newly
Liberated Areas
(February 17, 1948)
To the Central Plains Bureau, and all comrades in the Field Army Logistics
Department:
We received your February 13 telegram.1
	 1.	 We agree with your idea of first setting up poor peasant leagues to enhance
the consciousness and organizational sense of poor peasants and farmhands
and to establish the prestige of poor peasants and farmhands. In the struggle
against the Guomindang and the landlords, you should bring the middle peasants in to participate. A few months later, set up peasant associations to unite
all the peasants. This has already been stipulated in the Central Committee’s
[February 15] instructions on the main points of land reform in the newly liberated regions.2 The poor peasant leagues as well as the peasant associations
should take strict precautions against attempted infiltration by landlords, rich
peasants, and other opportunists. Poor peasants and farmhands must make
up two-thirds of the membership of each peasant association and committee,
and they must be assured of leadership power; this point is also essential.
	 2.	 The period of struggle tactics in the Newly Liberated Areas must be divided
into two major phases: first, the struggle against landlords, and then the
struggle against rich peasants. The first major phase must be further divided
into several steps. Begin by struggling against major landlords, local despots, and reactionary elements, and then, in accordance with the consciousness and degree of organization of the masses, gradually broaden the scope
of attack (in general, the overall scope of attack should not exceed 10 percent
of the rural area’s population) — this is the general principle. However, this
is not to say that we should not go along with peasant demands that we first
carry out struggle against those whom they hate most — the local security
heads who belong to the rich peasant, small landlord, or even the middle
peasant classes and the local despots. In particular, because many villages do
not have major landlords but only medium and small landlords and wealthy
peasants, we should allow the peasants to do things this way. When we
struggle against the reactionary local security heads and local despots from
the wealthy peasant and small landlord classes, this does not contradict our
policy of narrowing the scope of attack and not disturbing the majority of
wealthy peasants and small landlords for the time being during the first major
period.

--- Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 5, pp. 67–68, where it is reproduced
from the handwritten manuscript.

1.  The telegram from the Central Plains Bureau and the Logistics Department of the
Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu (Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan) Field Army regarding the struggle tactics
and the organization of land reform in the Newly Liberated Areas advocated setting up
poor peasant leagues before the peasant associations. The worry was that if the poor peasants did not have their own independent associations, the leadership of the peasant associations would fall into the hands of middle peasants, gangsters, and even rich peasants. The
telegram recommended that poor peasants make up at least two-thirds of the membership
of the peasant associations and their committees.

2.  Referring to the Party instructions that Mao Zedong drafted on behalf of the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on February 15, 1948. See “Instructions of
the Central Committee on Land Reform in the Newly Liberated Areas,” in this volume.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-87