May 24, 1948


It is necessary to give over-all consideration to the tactical problems of
rural work in the new Liberated Areas. In these areas we must make full use
of the experience gained in the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan;
for a considerable period after their liberation we should apply the social
policy of reducing rent and interest and properly adjusting the supplies
of seed and food grains and the financial policy of reasonable distribution
of burdens; we should aim our main blows only at the important
counter-revolutionaries who side politically with the Kuomintang and stubbornly
oppose our Party and our army, just as we only arrested the traitors and
confiscated their property during the period of the War of Resistance, and
we should not immediately apply the social reform policy of distributing
movable property and land. The reason is that only a few bolder elements
would welcome the premature distribution of movable property and that the
basic masses would not get anything and would therefore be dissatisfied.
Moreover, hasty dispersal of social wealth is to the disadvantage of the
army. Premature distribution of land would prematurely place the entire burden
of military requirements on the peasants instead of on the landlords and
rich peasants. In the sphere of social reform, it is better not to distribute
movable property and land but instead to reduce rent and interest universally
so that the peasants will receive tangible benefits, and in financial policy
we should effect a reasonable distribution of burdens so that the landlords
and rich peasants will pay more. In this way, social wealth will not be dispersed
and public order will be comparatively stable, and this will help us concentrate
all our forces on destroying the Kuomintang reactionaries. After one, two
or even three years, when the Kuomintang reactionaries have been wiped out
in extensive base areas, when conditions have become stable, when the masses
have awakened and organized themselves and when the war has moved far away,
we can enter the stage of land reform -- the distribution of movable property
and land as in northern China. The stage of rent and interest reduction cannot
be skipped in any new Liberated Area, and we shall make mistakes if we skip
it. The above tactics must also be carried out in those parts of the large
Liberated Areas in northern, northeastern and northwestern China which border
on enemy territory.

Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.