We have received your report dated November 13, 1948.

1. We concur with your view to first establish Poor Peasants’ Groups, so as to raise the class consciousness and organizational level of poor and hired peasants and to consolidate their prestige. In the course of struggle against the Kuomintang and landlords, medium-sized peasants should be brought into the movement. After a few months, a Farmers’ Association embracing all farmers may then be set up. This point has already been stipulated in the Central Committee’s Key Instructions on Land Reform in the New Liberated Areas. Both the Poor Peasants’ Groups and the Farmers’ Associations must strictly guard against the infiltration of landlords, rich peasants, and other opportunist elements. The Farmers’ Association and its committees must include one-third poor and hired peasants as members and committee members, thereby ensuring that leadership remains firmly in the hands of the poor and hired peasants; this is also absolutely essential.

2. The stage of struggle in the new liberated areas must be divided into two major phases: first, struggle against landlords; second, struggle against rich peasants. Within the first major phase, several steps should be delineated: begin by targeting large landlords, local bullies, and reactionary elements, and gradually expand the scope of the struggle in accordance with the degree of mass awareness and organization (the overall scope of action should, under normal circumstances, not exceed ten percent of the rural population; this constitutes a general principle). However, this does not mean that we should prohibit peasants from initially directing their struggle against those they hate most—namely, reactionary headmen of the baojia system or local bullies who happen to be rich peasants, small landlords, or even individual medium-sized peasants. On the contrary, especially in many villages where there are no large landlords but only medium- and small-scale landlords and rich peasants, peasants should be permitted to do so. Our policy of cracking down on reactionary headmen and bullies among rich peasants and small landlords, while simultaneously narrowing the scope of the struggle during the first major phase and refraining for the time being from disturbing the majority of rich peasants and small landlords, is entirely consistent with our overall strategy.
o Selected Documents on Land Reform During the Liberation War, Central Party School Press of the CPC, 1981; “Long Live Mao Zedong Thought” (Volume II)