discriminating way, and develop agricultural production. The basic force to be relied upon in the land reform can only be and must be the poor peasants. Together with the farm labourers, they make up about 70 percent of China’ s rural population. The main and immediate task of the land reform is to satisfy the demands of the masses of poor peasants and farm labourers. In the land reform it is necessary to unite with the middle peasants; the poor peasants and the farm labourers must form a solid united front with the middle peasants, who account for about 20 percent of the rural population. Otherwise, the poor peasants and farm labourers will find themselves isolated and the land reform will fail. One of the tasks in the land reform is to satisfy the demands of certain middle peasants. A section of the middle peasants must be allowed to keep some land over and above the average obtained by the poor peasants. We support the peasants’ demand for equal distribution of land in order to help arouse the broad masses of peasants speedily to abolish the system of landownership by the feudal landlord class, but we do not advocate absolute equalitarianism. W hoever advocates absolute equalitarianism is wrong. There is a kind of thinking now current in the countryside which undermines industry and commerce and advocates absolute equalitarianism in land distribution. Such thinking is reactionary, backward and retrogressive in nature. We must criticize it. The target of the land reform is only and must be the system of feudal exploitation by the landlord class and by the old-type rich peasants, and there should be no encroachment either upon the national bourgeoisie or upon the industrial and commercial enterprises run by the landlords and rich peasants. In particular, care must be taken not to encroach upon the interests of the middle peasants, September-2026 independent craftsmen, professionals and new rich peasants, all of whom engage in little or no exploitation. The aim of the land reform is to abolish the system of feudal exploitation, that is, to eliminate the feudal landlords as a class, not as individuals. Therefore a landlord must receive the same allotment of land and property as does a peasant and must be made to learn productive labour and join the ranks of the nation’ s economic life. Except for the most heinous counter-revolutionaries and local tyrants, who have incurred the bitter hatred of the broad masses, who have been proved guilty and who therefore may and ought to be punished, a policy of leniency must be applied to all, and any beating or killing without discrimination must be forbidden. The system of feudal exploitation should be abolished step by step, that is, in a tactical way. In launching the struggle we must determine our tactics according to the circumstances and the degree to which the peasant masses are awakened and organized. We must not attempt to wipe out overnight the whole system of feudal exploitation. In accordance with the actual conditions of the system of feudal exploitation in China’ s villages, the total scope of attack in the land reform should generally not exceed about 8 percent of the rural households or about 10 percent of the rural population. In the old and semi-old Liberated Areas the percentage should be even smaller. It is dangerous to depart from actual conditions and mistakenly enlarge the scope of attack. In the new Liberated Areas, moreover, it is necessary to distinguish between different places and different stages. By distinguishing between places we mean that in those places which we can hold securely we should concentrate our efforts on carrying out appropriate land reform work that accords with the wishes of the local masses, while in those places which for the time being are difficult to hold securely, until there is a change in the situation we should not be in a hurry to start the land reform but should confine ourselves to activities which are feasible and beneficial to the masses in the present circumstances. By distinguishing between stages we mean that in places recently occupied by the People’ s Liberation Army we should put forward and carry out the tactics of neutralizing the rich peasants, of neutralizing the middle and small landlords, and thus narrow the scope of the attack so as to destroy only the reactionary Kuomintang armed forces and deal blows at the bad gentry and local tyrants. We should concentrate all our efforts on accomplishing this task as the first stage of work in the new Liberated Areas. We should then advance step by step to the stage of total abolition of the feudal system, in accordance with the rising level of political consciousness and organization of the masses. In the new Liberated Areas we should distribute movable property and land only when conditions are relatively secure and the overwhelming majority of the masses have been fully roused to action; to act otherwise would be adventurist and undependable and would do harm rather than good. In the new Liberated Areas the experience gained during the War of Resistance must be fully utilized. By abolishing feudalism in a discriminating way we mean that we should distinguish between landlords and rich peasants, among big, middle and small landlords and between those landlords and rich peasants who are local tyrants and those who are not, and that, subject to the major premise of the equal distribution of land and the abolition of the feudal system, we should not decide on and give the same treatment to them all, but should differentiate and vary the treatment according
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