to varying conditions. When we do this, people will see that our work is completely reasonable. The development of agricultural production is the immediate aim of the land reform. Only by abolishing the feudal system can the conditions for such development be created. In every area, as soon as feudalism is wiped out and the land reform is completed, the Party and the democratic government must put forward the task of restoring and developing agricultural production, transfer all available forces in the countryside to this task, organize cooperation and mutual aid, improve agricultural technique, promote seed selection and build irrigation works— all to ensure increased production. Party organizations in the rural areas must devote the greatest energy to restoring and developing agricultural production and also industrial production in small towns. In order to speed up this restoration and development, we must do our utmost, in the course of our struggle for the abolition of the feudal system, to preserve all useful means of production and of livelihood, take resolute measures against anyone’ s destroying or wasting them, oppose extravagant eating and drinking and pay attention to thrift and economy. In order to develop agricultural production, we must advise the peasants to organize, voluntarily and step by step, the various types of producers’ and consumers’ co-operatives based on private ownership, which are permissible under present economic conditions. The abolition of the feudal system and the development of agricultural production will lay the foundation for the development of industrial production and the transformation of an agricultural country into an industrial one. This is the ultimate goal of the newdemocratic revolution.
You comrades know that our Party has laid down the general line and general policy of the Chinese 12 revolution as well as various specific lines for work and specific policies. However, while many comrades remember our Party’ s specific lines for work and specific policies, they often forget its general line and general policy. If we actually forget the Party’ s general line and general policy, then we shall be blind, halfbaked, muddle-headed revolutionaries, and when we carry out a specific line for work and a specific policy, we shall lose our bearings and vacillate now to the left and now to the right, and the work will suffer. Let me repeat: The revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism waged by the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat— this is China’ s newdemocratic revolution, and this is the general line and general policy of the Communist Party of China at the present stage of history.
To rely on the poor peasants, unite with the middle peasants, abolish the system of feudal exploitation step by step and in a discriminating way, and develop agricultural production— this is the general line and general policy of the Communist Party of China in the work of land reform during the period of the new-democratic revolution. NOTES
[ 1 ]
. Issued on February 1948, this directive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China summed up the experience of work in the land reform and Party consolidation in various Liberated Areas, laid down a series of policies and methods for the land reform and Party consolidation and stressed the correction of“ Left” deviations which had occurred during the execution of these two tasks in certain areas.
[ 2 ]
. See the introductory note to“ The Present Situation and Our Tasks”, pp. 158-59 of this volume.
[ 3 ]
. This refers to the“ Directive on Correcting Mistakes in the Determination of Class Status and on Uniting with the Middle Peasants” issued by the Shansi-Suiyuan Sub- Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on January 13, 1948. The directive is divided into five sections. The following are its main points:( a) Because the criteria for class identification had not been welldefined, quite a few persons were wrongly classified as bankrupt landlords or rich peasants on the spontaneous demands of the peasants, and in particular, well-todo middle peasants were wrongly classified as rich peasants. This had an adverse effect on the effort to unite with the middle peasants and was wrong.( b) Proper measures were to be taken resolutely to persuade the peasants to correct these mistakes. Suitable restitution was to be made of property that had been taken.( c) It was to be explained to the peasants and the cadres that the only criterion in class identification should be the relationship of exploitation. Mistakes in determining class status were to be corrected.( d) The principle of relying on poor peasants and farm labourers and uniting with middle peasants had to be grasped. The middle peasants were to be enabled to have one-third of the members of the peasant representative conferences and of the leading bodies of the peasant associations, and consideration was to be given to their interests in taxation and in the land reform.( e) Responsible cadres were to make a serious study of the Party’ s class policy for the rural areas. Mistakes that departed from the Party’ s policies concerning the middle peasants had to be corrected, they had to be corrected through the masses. Simultaneously with the issuance of this five-point directive, the Shansi- Suiyuan Sub-Bureau issued the“ Directive on the Protection of Industry and Commerce” to correct the deviations of encroaching on industry and commerce during the land reform.
[ 5 ]
. This refers to the supply and marketing co-operatives. �
Class Struggle