DECISIONS ON AGRICULTURAL CO-OPERATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00418R006200350016-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 57
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Sequence Number: 16
• Content Type: REPORT

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DECISIONS
ON
AGRICULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
Adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session (Enlarged)
of the Seventh Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China
October 11, 1955
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DECISIONS
ON
AGRICULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
Adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session (Enlarged)
of the Seventh Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China
October 11, 1955
FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS
PEKING 1956
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CONTENTS
Decisions on Agricultural Co-operation, Adopted
at the Sixth Plenary Session (Enlarged)
of the Seventh Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China, October 11,
1955 . . . . .
Explanatory Notes to the Draft Decisions on
Agricultural Co-operation by Chen Po-ta 35
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Adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session (Enlarged)
of the Seventh Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China
(These decisions were adopted on October 11, 1955, in the light
of Comrade Mao Tse-tung's report "The Question of Agricul.
tural Co-operation" delivered at a meeting of secretaries of
provincial, municipal and autonomous region committees of the
Communist Party of China on July 31, 1955)
At the present moment, a profound movement of
socialist transformation is taking place in the rural
areas. Between the spring of 1954 and the summer
of 1955 the number of agricultural producers' co-
operatives rose from 100,000 to nearly 650,000. The
number of peasant households in the agricultural pro-
ducers' co-operatives rose from 1,800,000 to 16,900,000.
That is about 15 per cent of all peasant households in
China. The progress of the movement is, however,
uneven. In many parts of the old liberated areas it
has already assumed the form of a huge mass move-
ment. This is because the peasants there have a
richer experience of revolutionary struggle, and
mutual-aid teams (which serve as a foundation for
co-operation) have existed there for many years. For
instance, in provinces in North China, like Shansi, 41
per cent of the peasant households have joined the
co-operatives while in Hopei, 35 per cent have joined.
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Thirty-four per cent of all peasant households in the
three northeastern provinces are in co-operatives. In
some hsiang,1 districts and even counties in these re-
gions, 60, 70 or even 810 per cent of all peasant house-
holds have joined co-operatives. In the provinces in
Southeast, Central-South, Southwest and Northwest
China that were liberated later on, most hsiang already
have their first groups of agricultural producers' co-
operatives. This has paved the way for a great
expansion of the agricultural co-operative movement.
The facts confirm the estimate of the Central
Committee of the Party that the tide of social reform
in the countryside-in the shape of co-operation-will
soon sweep the entire country. It has already reached
some places.
Faced with the daily growth of the agricultural
co-operative movement, the Party's task is to lead the
movement forward, boldly and according to plan, not
timidly. It must be understood that in leading the
peasants to overthrow imperialism and feudalism, our
Party carried out a bourgeois-democratic revolution.
But the aim of the working class is to continue the
advance and follow up that revolution by leading the
peasants to embark on a socialist revolution. In the
earlier stage of the revolution the class struggle in the
rural areas was chiefly a struggle between the peasants
and the landlord class. The peasant question which
had to be solved then was that of land. In this new
stage of the revolution, however, the class struggle in
the countryside is chiefly between the peasants on the
1 An administrative unit of one or several villages.-
Translator.
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one hand and rich peasants and other capitalist ele-
ments on the other. It is essentially a struggle over
the choice between two roads-the development of
socialism or of capitalism. The question to be solved
is a new peasant question-the problem of agricultural
co-operation. New relationships within the worker-
peasant alliance and the leading role of the working
class in this alliance must be established and strength-
ened on the basis of concerting the development of
socialist industrialization and agricultural co-operation.
China's industry is growing rapidly. Facts show
that if the development of agricultural co-operation
fails to keep pace with it, if the increase in grain and
industrial crops lags behind, China's socialist in-
dustrialization will run into great difficulties. The
situation has already changed fundamentally, but the
attitude of some of our comrades to the peasant ques-
tion still remains at the old stage. They fail to see
the sharp struggle over the choice between the two
roads which is now taking place in the rural areas.
They fail to see the active desire of the majority of
the peasants to take the road to socialism. They are
satisfied .that the peasants have obtained land from
the landlords, and want to keep things as they are in
the villages, or contend that the speed at which agri-
cultural co-operation develops should be very slow.
They fail to understand that this means abandoning
the active leadership of the Party in the movement
for agricultural co-operation and allowing capitalism
to develop freely in the rural areas. This would result
in undermining the worker-peasant alliance, losing
working-class leadership of the peasantry and so head-
ing the cause of socialism for defeat. Comrades with
such misguided views are afraid to trust the masses.
They are pessimistic about the policy on co-operation
of the Central Committee of the Party and about the
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leadership of the local Party committees at various
levels. They assume that our Party can hardly con-
solidate the several hundred thousand small co-opera-
tives that already exist, and that any large-scale
expansion is certainly inconceivable. They have put
forward a Right-opportunist policy of "drastic com-
pression," and in some places dissolved a large number
of co-operatives by compulsion and "orders from
above." Yet this pessimism is in practice shown to
be unfounded by the growing consolidation of the
several hundred thousand co-operatives which already
exist, the increased output of the great majority of
them, and the active desire of the peasant masses to
join them. The bankruptcy of this Right opportunism
is thus exposed and shown up for what it really is-a
reflection of the demand of the bourgeoisie and the
spontaneous growth of forces towards capitalism in
the rural areas. The Sixth Plenary Session holds
that the criticism made by the Political Bureau of
the Central Committee against Right opportunism is
absolutely correct and necessary. We can bring about
a fundamental change in the Party's rural work and
alter the situation in which leadership lags behind the
mass movement only when this Right opportunism is
thoroughly criticized and repudiated. This change is
vital if progress in the agricultural co-operative move-
ment is to continue till complete victory is won.
It is possible to develop agricultural co-operation
primarily because we have established in our country
a people's democratic dictatorship headed by the work-
ing class, and because this people's democratic
dictatorship is now engaged in organizing our socialist
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construction. At the same time, it is possible because
the majority of the peasants are willing to take the
socialist road in order to get rid of exploitation and
poverty. The majority here referred to are mainly
the poor peasants who have not yet risen to a better
economic position, the lower middle peasants among
the new middle peasants who were formerly poor
peasants, and the lower middle peasants among the
old middle peasants.' Since the land reform the
economic condition of these sections of the peasantry
has improved to varying extents, but many peasant
households still have their difficulties or are still not
well-off, while some have again lost their share of land
because of exploitation by rich peasants or speculative
merchants, or because they were unable to withstand
natural calamities. Therefore, if the Party fails to
give the peasants active guidance along the socialist
road, capitalism will inevitably grow in the rural areas
and the separation of the rural population into two
extremes will become serious. Actual experience has
taught the peasants that they cannot go on living as
they used to-farming scattered, tiny plots on their
own-that the only way out is for a large number of
people to come together, pool their labour and work
under collective management. The advantages of this
method were first shown by the numerous mutual-aid
teams and, even more, later, by the large number
of agricultural producers'. co-operatives which were
established. Agricultural producers' co-operatives can
organize labour power rationally so that productivity
can be raised more rapidly; they can systematically
and effectively use land and extend the area under
I Old middle peasants are those who were middle peasants
before the land reform. New middle peasants are those who
have risen to the status of middle peasants since the land
reform.-Translator.
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cultivation; they can resist or reduce the ravages of
nature, and, with state help, gradually introduce
technical reforms in agriculture. For these and other
reasons, they are able to bring about a speedy develop-
ment of the productive forces in agriculture and
give the peasants substantial benefits. That is what
accounts for the growing popularity of agricultural
producers' co-operatives among the peasants.
As the past few years' experience shows, the fol-
lowing procedure will enable the co-operative move-
ment to develop on an even firmer foundation :
1. As the movement progresses, an acute strug-
gle will be waged against the rich peasants and
speculative merchants, and the peasants themselves
will be educated in the midst of the struggle. The
mass of the middle peasants in particular must be
educated and convinced so that they can stop vacil-
lating between the socialist and capitalist roads.
Therefore, the movement must be given a firm core
-a core formed of the active elements among the
poor peasants who have not yet been elevated to a bet-
ter economic position and those of the lower middle
peasants among the new middle peasants who were
formerly poor peasants. It should also include part
of the active elements of the lower middle peasants
among the old middle peasants. The first step to be
taken by the Party in the co-operative movement
should be to organize these people, so that they can
set an example and convince other peasants.
2. Although these sections of the peasantry-
the poor peasants and the lower middle peasants among
both new and old middle peasants, stand fairly close
to each other as far as their economic condition is
concerned, their active desire to join the co-operatives
will for a time differ in degree for various reasons.
Therefore, every year we should carry out work among
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them so that they will, over the next few years, or-
ganize themselves group by group, according to the
degree of their understanding, into new co-operatives,
or be absorbed into existing ones. Patience must be
exercised towards those who, for the time being, do
not wish to join, even if they are poor or lower middle
peasants. The principle of voluntariness should never
be violated ; they should not be dragged into co-opera-
tives against their will. A peasant may put forward
and withdraw his name for membership several times
before he finally makes his mind up. He should be
given plenty of time to consider the matter.
3. Well-to-do middle peasants (that is, the
upper middle peasants among both the old and new
middle peasants) have better farm tools and draught
animals, their land is more intensively cultivated, its
yield is higher, or they derive a bigger income from
subsidiary occupations. As long as they still do not
realize that the benefits derived from co-operative
farming are greater than-or at least, for the time
being, equal to-those obtained by working on their
own, they will not readily join a co-operative. If they
join reluctantly, frequent conflicts are bound to arise
among the members over the practical question of
benefits. That is why, when a co-operative is organized,
it is not advisable at the start to accept well-to-do
middle peasants unless they show a genuine willing-
ness to join, still less to drag them in against their
will. Efforts should be made to influence them by
showing them the advantages of co-operative farming,
letting them wait and see for a bit and not enrolling
them till their understanding grows.
4. The middle peasants are the permanent allies
of the working class and the poor peasants. Good
relations should be maintained with them both inside
and outside the co-operatives. Their interests should
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never be infringed nor their property taken from them.
The backward ideas of the middle peasants, particular-
ly the tendency towards capitalism of the well-to-do
middle peasants, should be properly countered by
convincing argument, not dealt with by arbitrary
administrative methods. The purpose of criticism
must be to achieve unity. It must never be used as a
pretext for attacking the middle peasants.
5. Before setting up co-operatives it is essential
that the masses should be mentally prepared and
that Rightist tendencies in the Party should be
censured and overcome. Our Party's principles, policy
and measures on agricultural co-operation must be
publicized, systematically and repeatedly, among the
mass of the peasants. And not only should the ad-
vantages of co-operation be made known to them; they
should also be made aware of the difficulties that may
arise in the course of co-operation and how such
difficulties can be overcome.
6. The masses should be prepared organiza-
tionally for the formation of co-operatives. Agricul-
tural producers' mutual-aid teams must be promoted
on a really widespread scale; wherever possible they
should be combined into joint teams so as to lay the
groundwork for turning them into co-operatives. Joint
committees of mutual-aid teams and co-operatives may
be established in villages where there are mutual-aid
teams and co-operatives. These should hold regular
meetings, to which representatives of individual peas-
ants should be invited so that experience can be ex-
changed and arrangements made for whatever mutual
help is needed and possible. This will pave the way
for the future merging of co-operatives, the gradual
transformation of mutual-aid: teams into co-operatives
and the drawing of individual peasants step by step
into the co-operatives.
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7. Short-term training of cadres for running
co-operatives is an important preparation for the
setting up of co-operatives. Those to be trained should
be carefully chosen.
The growth of the co-operative movement should
go hand in hand with the consolidation of existing co-
operatives. It is one-sided and wrong to pay attention
only to consolidation and disregard expansion, to deny
that an increase in the number of co-operatives would
help raise their quality. It is equally one-sided and
wrong to pay attention only to expansion and to
disregard consolidation, attaching importance only to
the number of co-operatives and ignoring their quality.
Therefore, once they are established, co-operatives
should take steps to check over their work systematic-
ally. Checking over of the co-operatives should be
carried out not just once, but twice or three times a
year, so as to keep on improving their quality.
L. Each co-operative, in the light of its own
special characteristics and current practical problems,
should draw up a policy and measures for checking.
2. The work of checking should be carried out
group by group, starting with those co-operatives
which have the most problems. The varied experience
gained in checking over different types of co-operatives
should be made known to help push forward the entire
movement.
3. Those carrying out the work of checking
should have a warm and helpful attitude and approach
this work with care. It should not be done in an over-
simplified and arbitrary manner. It is utterly wrong
to decide beforehand the number of co-operatives that
must be cut down and then forcibly dissolve them.
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It is also entirely wrong to be harsh towards
those co-operatives which have been "spontaneously
organized." They should be given warm help after
careful consideration of their cases.
4. In checking over co-operatives, attention
should be focussed on production, for that is the key
issue. In the course of organizing production various
problems should be unearthed and solved methodically ;
ideological work among co-operative members should
be intensified ; management improved ; and the Party
policy on the co-operative movement of voluntariness
and mutual benefit thoroughly carried out.
5. During such checking, attention should also
be paid to improving the make-up of the co-operatives,
reshuffling their leading members as need arises, and
training of new key personnel from among the poor
peasants.
6. The hsiang Party and Youth League branches
must be relied on both for establishing co-operatives
and checking them over. The key to the successful
running of co-operatives lies in the strengthening
of the work of Party and Youth League branches.
Therefore, the work of building and checking over
co-operatives should be closely associated with the
building and strengthening of the Party and Youth
League branches in the countryside. In carrying out
all such work the local cadres in the rural areas should
be the mainstay, cadres sent from above should be an
auxiliary force.
At the present stage agricultural producers' co-
operatives in our country are generally of an elemen-
tary, semi-socialist type, characterized by the pooling
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of land and a single management. This kind of
co-operative is a transitional form to the fully socialist
type. Private ownership of land and some other
important means of production is, in the main, or to
a considerable extent, retained, and privately-owned
means of production are not to be hastily turned into
common property. That is to say, both during the
period of establishing and of checking over co-
operatives, the private property of the members should
be dealt with in a reasonable way, in line with the
principle of mutual benefit, so as to make it easier to
expand the co-operatives and put them on a sound
footing. This means that co-operatives pay a certain
amount of compensation for the use of private land,
draught animals and large farm tools, and reasonable
prices for such private means of production as
draught animals and farm tools when transferred to
the co-operatives as common property.
The means of production owned by members of
co-operatives differ in number and quality. Moreover,
it is necessary for different co-operatives in different
areas to take varying circumstances into account
when they decide on how and when the means of pro-
duction owned by members are to be hired or trans-
ferred to the co-operatives as common property. In
view of this, suitable agreements must be reached
between co-operative members, and chiefly between the
poor and middle peasants, on all these questions, as
well as on the question of subsidiary occupations.
1. As regards the land belonging to members of
the co-operatives:
a. Methods of assessing the yield of land to be
pooled in the co-operatives should be based on the
quality of the land, giving due consideration to the
economic interests of those members the yield of whose
land is, owing to lack of means, relatively low but
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can be raised after being pooled in the co-operative.
Likewise, due consideration should be given to the
value of the labour and fertilizer previously applied to
the land by its owner on the basis of its actual yield
for a normal year. In this way, conflicts arising out
of differences in the actual yield as well as in the latent
productivity of the land can be solved amicably
between the poor and middle peasants, and this will
make for greater enthusiasm on the part of the mem-
bers to raise the productivity of the land and to invest
in it.
b. Different methods are used in different areas
to decide what dividends will be paid on land pooled
in co-operatives. Generally speaking, the method of
giving a fixed dividend is good for encouraging the
members' enthusiasm for work. The method of giving
dividends on land and paying for labour according to
a fixed ratio is suitable, however, in newly organized
co-operatives or in areas where the yield tends to
fluctuate. In certain places some methods supple-
mentary to these have been adopted. Whatever method
is used, attention should be paid to the following
points :
The amount paid out in dividends on land should
generally be lower than the amount paid out for labour.
It is wrong to set the dividend on land too high. But
at the same time consideration should be given to those
co-operative member households which are short of
labour power but have more land, especially those of
the old, weak, orphaned or widowed, so that they can
get a suitable income. It is just as wrong to fix the
dividend on land too low.
The proportion of income decided on as dividend
for land should not be arbitrarily standardized. Con-
sideration should be given to the difference in condi-
tions between areas which have relatively less land
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and more people, and those which have more land and
fewer people, as well as to the specific circumstances
of certain areas which grow industrial crops requiring
more field work.
In view of the peasants' predilection for the
private ownership of land, the amount of dividend
which the co-operatives decide to pay on land should
remain constant for a certain period, say two or three
years after a co-operative is founded, and should not
be lowered each year; still less should dividends on
land be discontinued prematurely.
c. Co-operative members should be allowed to
retain small plots of land of their own, amounting to
about two to five per cent of the average individual
land-holding in the village, for growing vegetables, or
for subsidiary agricultural products and occupations.
The produce of such plots may be kept for home use
or sold on the market. Some co-operatives have re-
fused to allow their members to retain any land for
their own use. That is wrong.
2. As regards draught animals and farm tools
belonging to members of the co-operatives :
a. Great care must be taken while deciding
whether draught animals belonging to members shall
be transferred to the co-operatives as common prop-
erty. During the first year or two after they are
formed, and while they are still economically weak or
lack administrative experience, the co-operatives may
retain the private ownership and rearing of draught
animals, and hire them on a temporary or long-term
basis so that the co-operatives may avoid incurring
too many debts or losing animals through improper
feeding. As productivity increases, the co-operatives
may purchase the animals in such ways as circum-
stances permit. Those co-operatives which bought
draught animals when they were established need not,
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however, reverse their decision, provided that they are
organized on a sound basis and economically fairly
well off and that the original owners of the animals
or other members of the co-operative raise no objection.
In some places, there is no difficulty in getting
fodder but the charge for the hire of draught animals
is rather high. In cases like this, if it is beneficial
to the production of the co-operatives to buy the
animals somewhat earlier and if the owners consent,
the co-operatives can do so provided local conditions
permit. In other places, because of production needs
or the local custom among the peasants of feeding their
draught animals jointly, co-operatives may, in the
period before the animals are purchased, adopt the
method of individual ownership of animals and co-
operative rearing (or co-operative rearing during busy
seasons and private rearing during slack seasons).
This is permissible if it is convenient for farm work
and the draught animals can be fed properly.
b. Contracts for the hire or purchase of draught
animals should be signed after the co-operatives have
conducted thorough negotiations with members who
own the beasts. Reasonable fees should be fixed for
the hire of animals depending on their condition, and
reasonable prices and terms of payment should be
fixed for the purchase of animals by co-operatives.
When payment is made by instalments, a certain
amount of interest should be paid to owners before the
final instalment is cleared. The length of time taken to
pay off the instalments may vary according to econom-
ic conditions in various areas and co-operatives. In
general, three years is reasonable; anyhow, it should
not be longer than five. There are some co-operatives
which set too low a price on draught animals and too
long a period for payment; there are even cases where
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no definite date is set and no interest is paid at all.
This has led to members neglecting their animals. It
must be put right.
c. Co-operatives should make appropriate ar-
rangements for the use of the big, medium and small
draught animals which are hired, bought by the co-
operatives or owned and used privately. In order to
breed more draught animals, special care should be
given to pedigree beasts and the protection of young
animals.
d. In dealing with large and fairly large farm
tools owned by members, too, co-operatives can, after
renting for a certain period, buy them over one by one.
Co-operatives should pay a reasonable sum for the
hire of such tools and pay by instalments if they are
bought. There are some co-operatives which use their
members' farm tools for prolonged periods but pay
nothing for their hire or upkeep, and no compensation
when they are damaged. This must be corrected.
3. As regards means of production for sub-
sidiary occupations such as groves of trees, fish-ponds,
etc. belonging to members of the co-operatives :
a. A distinction should be made between those
subsidiary occupations which are best run individually
and those which are best run collectively. It is un-
suitable to bring into the co-operatives means of pro-
duction used in subsidiary occupations which can be
made better use of under individual management, and
it is even more unsuitable to make them the property
of the co-operatives. Those which can be better used
under collective management, which will help improve
the economic status of all members to a greater ex-
tent, may be gradually brought under the management
of the co-operatives after negotiations with the owners,
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either by hiring them or buying them on the instal-
ment plan.
b. Members' small holdings of trees (including
fruit trees, bamboos and other trees used for industrial
purposes) may in general be left to the management
of members themselves. Where members own groves
or orchards and there is need for unified planning of
agricultural and forestry production, they may be
brought with the owners' consent under the single
management of the co-operative, but the private own-
ership of them remains. The method of distributing
income from such groves and orchards must be settled
through thorough negotiations among members.
The question of fish-ponds owned by members may
be dealt with according to circumstances in the same
way as that of groves and orchards.
In order to put their collective economy on a sound
basis, agricultural producers' co-operatives should
gradually build up common funds in two main forms,
namely, a shares fund and a reserve fund.
The shares fund is built up in the following way.
Every member makes a contribution towards the costs
of production covering seed, fertilizer, fodder, etc., or
towards the cost of draught animals and tools bought
from members. The amount of the contribution is
based on the amount of land pooled (or in some cases
on an agreed ratio between the land and labour con-
tributed, or in others, where land is plentiful and
payment for it low, on labour only). The share each
should pay should be properly worked out, and should
be within the power of the majority of members to
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pay. Payments to the shares fund may be made in
cash or kind. If the amount paid in kind is more
than is needed, the balance should be credited to the
member concerned as investment. Poor peasants who
cannot afford to contribute to the shares fund may be
helped by state loans.
The amount to be set aside each year as a reserve
fund for increasing the co-operative's means of pro-
duction must be decided according to the actual cir-
cumstances. Generally speaking, it is better in the
first few years that it should not exceed five per cent
of the total annual income from agriculture and sub-
sidiary occupations (gross output less production
costs). Later, as output grows, this proportion can
be suitably raised. The fund set aside for the wel-
fare of members should, in the first few years, gen-
erally speaking, not exceed one per cent of a co-
operative's total annual income. Depending on local
conditions, the relative amounts to be set aside for
the reserve and welfare funds may be slightly higher
in co-operatives in areas cultivating industrial crops.
When a member withdraws from a co-operative,
he may take with him his share contribution but not
any of the reserve fund or welfare fund. There must
be a revision of the regulations given in the "Decisions
on the Development of Mutual Aid and Co-operation
in Agricultural Production" issued by the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China in March
1953, in as far as they specify "complete freedom for
members to withdraw both their invested capital and
their contributions to the reserve fund" when leaving
the co-operatives.
Apart from the shares fund and the reserve fund,
members should be encouraged to invest in the co-
operatives, which should repay capital so invested, with
interest, at regular intervals.
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Agricultural producers' co-operatives must adopt
measures to ensure the growth of their productive
powers and prove in practice that co-operatives are
much superior to individual farming and mutual-aid
teams.
1. They should draw up their annual production
plans and long-term over-all production plans, make
full use of all favourable factors in the co-operatives
or. in the locality, unearth the key factors which make
for increased output, and develop the latent capacity
in agricultural production.
a. They should improve farming skills and
methods by such means as deep ploughing and inten-
sive cultivation, planting rationally in close rows, in-
creasing the number of crops harvested annually,
using good seed, popularizing new farm tools and
fighting plant diseases and pests.
They should pay attention to learning from
veteran farmers and absorbing all that is valuable in
their experience; they should take energetic measures
to teach the young men and women members to im-
prove their farming skills.
b. They should undertake capital construction
where necessary and possible, for example, building
small water conservancy projects, terracing fields,
improving the soil, work on conservation of soil and
water, buying draught animals and farm tools. They
should use locally-produced natural fertilizer and make
great efforts to accumulate and prepare fertilizer.
Appropriate payment should be made to members who
hand over their accumulated fertilizer to the co-
operatives for public use.
c. They should expand the area under cultivation
and plant high-yield crops. Wherever there are
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water-ways or other water sources, the acreage of rice
should be extended as much as possible in order to
further increase grain output.
d. A diversified economy should be developed in
accordance with local conditions and with the plans
of the local state organs, to include agriculture, handi-
crafts, livestock breeding, forestry, fruit growing,
fishery and other subsidiary occupations.
To develop the economy of hilly, well-forested
areas where livestock breeding prevails, producers' co-
operatives may be organized to combine agriculture,
forestry and livestock breeding.
2. The valuable experience of those co-operatives
which have successfully built up a system of fixed
responsibility for a specified job should be publicized,
and labour power should be rationally organized.
Where such a system of responsibility cannot be
practised all the year round, it may be adopted on a
temporary or seasonal basis to prepare the ground
for a year-round system of responsibility.
a. Systems should be introduced to specify the
responsibilities of production brigades and groups and
their individual members as regards cultivation, live-
stock breeding and the care of farm tools. Labour
discipline should be tightened up.
b. A labour production quota (that is, a standard
work-day) system covering both quantity and quality
should be introduced on a piece-work basis, on the
principle that "he who works more is paid more and
he who works less gets less."
c. A regular inspection system should be in-
troduced whereby the work of the production brigades
and groups and their individual members can be ex-
amined at all levels and any work that falls below
standard improved in good time.
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d. A system of rewards for above-quota produc-
tion should be adopted, tied to a seasonal or
year-round system of responsibility. Those who
overfulfil their production plans should be rewarded
and those who fall behind because of slackness should
have deductions made from their pay. In the event
of natural calamities, production quotas should be
revised taking into account the resultant difficulties.
Those who work hard in combatting calamities and
exceed their revised production quotas should be re-
warded. Those who do little or nothing to combat
natural calamities and so fail to reach the revised
quotas should be penalized.
3. An industrious and thrifty attitude should
be encouraged in running co-operatives. Financial
management and book-keeping should be improved.
Financial work should be such as to supervise and
ensure a growth in production and a proper distribu-
tion of income. Slack financial management should be
cut out and waste and extravagance checked.
a. A limit should be set to all expenditure. The
simple and convenient system of "fixing a maximum
expenditure for each item" should be widely adopted.
Those who economize should be rewarded, and those
guilty of corruption or waste penalized.
b. Reliable book-keepers should be selected and
a mutual-help network set up among. book-keepers of
co-operatives to exchange experience.
4. Political, cultural and educational work should
be improved to raise the level of socialist conscious-
ness among co-operative members and develop their
keenness and creativeness.
a. Our country's socialist cause and the momen-
tous significance of agriculture in the economic life of
the nation should be widely publicized among co-
operative members. The state plans for economic
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construction, particularly the agricultural production
plan and the plan for the purchase of agricultural prod-
uce, should be publicized among co-operative members
and they should be shown how to properly implement
the policy of the state on rural work and the planned
purchase of grain and other farm produce.
b. The idea of collective concern for the co-
operative and for common property should be instilled
in members, and efforts should be made to gradually
overcome individualist tendencies. Behaviour detri-
mental to labour discipline should be checked.
c. Unity and mutual help should be promoted
among production brigades and groups and individual
members, and emulation in labour introduced. Un-
remitting research into and improvement of farming
technique should be fostered. Care should be taken
to bring the energies of the women and the younger
members of the co-operatives into full play.
d. Democracy should be promoted within the co-
operatives and members encouraged to put forward
rationalization proposals to improve the work.
e. Plans should be drawn up to eliminate illiter-
acy over a period of years and to raise the cultural
level of members, particularly of cadres.
f. Co-operative members should be educated to
raise their political vigilance so that they can wage
an unrelenting struggle against all forms of counter-
revolutionary sabotage.
Financial and economic departments concerned,
and especially agricultural administrative depart-
ments, must treat financial and technical aid for the
agricultural co-operative movement as one of their
most important tasks.
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1. Besides issuing loans to poor peasants to help
them take up shares in agricultural producers' co-
operatives, and thus facilitate co-operation between
them and the middle peasants, the People's Bank and
the Agricultural Bank should gradually increase the
amounts loaned to agricultural producers' co-opera-
tives for investment in capital construction, reduce
interest rates where appropriate, and extend the
period of repayment of loans which can be set at three
to five years.
2. Departments concerned with agriculture
should set up agro-technical stations in a planned
way and make them centres for passing on technical
aid by the state to agricultural producers' co-operatives
(e.g., demonstrating the use of improved types of
farm tools, the cultivation and use of better seed,
methods of improving farming skills and eliminating
insects and pests).
The work of state farms should be improved so
that they give better assistance to the co-operatives
and set an example to be followed.
3. Administrative departments concerned with
the engineering industry, and with trade and
handicraft production should make reasonable reduc-
tions in prices not only of farm tools but also of
insecticides and insecticide spraying equipment. The
quality of these products however must not be lowered
when prices are reduced; on the contrary, efforts
should be made to improve their quality.
To keep pace with the growth of the agricultural
co-operative movement, all departments concerned
with the engineering industry should pay special at-
tention to research on the design, assembly and repair
of improved types of farm tools. The first tractor
plant should be completed as quickly as possible, and
preparations begun at the earliest possible date for
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the second and third. They should also produce more
machinery and equipment for water conservancy
undertakings. Departments concerned with the
chemical industry should increase the output of
fertilizer.
4. Departments concerned with agricultural
administration should pay attention to the training of
a large number of book-keepers and gradually send a
sufficient number of book-keeping instructors, who can
travel from place to place to give guidance to co-
operative farms in improving their book-keeping and
accounting methods. Book-keepers in district or
hsiang branches of the People's Bank, the Agricultural
Bank and the supply and marketing co-operatives
should do their best to help agricultural producers'
co-operatives with their book-keeping and accounting.
As the co-operative movement develops, many
former landlords, rich peasants and counter-revolu-
tionaries of various sorts will undoubtedly engage in
all kinds of sabotage. We must be alert to the serious
danger of such sabotage in the agricultural co-
operative movement. Quite a number of landlords,
rich peasants and counter-revolutionaries have already
wormed their way in various guises into co-operatives.
Some have even seized important positions in them,
pushing their way into the leadership in an effort to
turn them into their tools or destroy them by under-
hand means. They try to undermine the Party leader-
ship in co-operatives, attack and victimize the active
elements among the masses and the cadres of the co-
operatives, slaughter livestock, destroy farm crops and
even commit such crimes as arson and assassination.
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Some landlords, rich peasants and counter-revolution-
aries have even organized sham co-operatives. It
must therefore be laid down that:
1. In places where the great majority of peas-
ants have not yet joined co-operatives, for the next
few years landlords or rich peasants must be resolutely
debarred from joining co-operatives. Only in those
places where the great majority of peasants have
joined co-operatives and the co-operatives are on a
sound basis can former landlords or rich peasants be
permitted to join in different groups at different time,
and then only on condition that they are law-abiding
and have for a long time ceased to exploit others and
have themselves engaged in work. This may be done
in order that their reform can be continued through
collective work in production.
2. Landlords or rich peasants who have already
joined the co-operatives should be dealt with in-
dividually according to how they have behaved since
joining. Those who have engaged in sabotage must
be resolutely expelled. Cases of serious misdemeanour
should be handed over to the courts. Only those who
work and are law-abiding may be permitted to remain
and continue their reform in the co-operatives.
3. Measures appropriate to the circumstances
must be taken to clean up and reorganize those co-
operatives in which landlords, rich peasants or counter-
revolutionaries have gained control of posts.
4. Sham co-operatives organized by lardlords,
rich peasants or counter-revolutionaries must be
dissolved. Educational work suited to each individual
case should be carried out among the poor and middle
peasants who joined such co-operatives; they should
be reorganized in a proper way.
In various provinces there are still backward
villages where the agrarian reform was not carried
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out in a thorough-going way. Such villages total
approximately 5 per cent of all villages. Feudal land-
lords, rowdies, counter-revolutionaries and other bad
elements in these places are still exploiting and op-
pressing the peasants, either openly or in secret. In
such villages, it is also possible to organize the active
and reliable elements among the poverty-stricken peas-
ants to form co-operatives. At the same time, it is
essential to get the masses fully on the move as soon
as possible, resolutely wipe out the feudal and counter-
revolutionary forces, and so create the conditions
necessary for smooth development of agricultural
co-operation.
To give active, planned leadership to the move-
ment for agricultural co-operation, national, provincial
(or autonomous region), administrative region (or
autonomous chott), county (or autonomous county),
district, hsiang (or nationality hsiang) and village
plans should be drawn up for the co-operative move-
ment to be carried out in stages. In making such
plans, attention should be paid to specific differences
which the co-operative movement shows in different
places, as well as to similarities.
Because different conditions obtain in different
areas, the progress of agricultural co-operation may,
generally speaking, differ in the following ways:
1. In places where the mutual-aid and co-
operative movement is relatively well advanced, and
where, by the summer of 1955, between 30 and 40 per
cent of all peasant households had joined co-operatives,
the movement can, generally speaking, be expanded
by the spring of 1957 to embrace 70 or 80 per cent of
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the peasant households. That is to say, in such areas,
the building of semi-socialist co-operatives can be
basically completed by that time. Provinces in North
and Northeast China and a larger or smaller area in
certain other provinces will fall into this category.
2. Over a large part of the country, by the sum-
mer of 1955 approximately 10 to 20 per cent of all
peasant households had joined co-operatives. In such
areas the work of building semi-socialist co-operatives
can be basically completed before the spring of 1958.
3. More time is needed to build co-operatives in
areas where the foundations of the mutual-aid move-
ment are relatively weak and where there are still
only very few agricultural producers' co-operatives.
These are for the most part border areas. There are
some border areas where land reform has not yet been
carried out and no mutual-aid teams or co-operatives
have been organized at all. In such areas, it is
necessary to advance fairly slowly, or even wait and
see for a long time.
In drawing up plans for agricultural co-operation,
the Communist Party committees in various provinces,
municipalities and autonomous regions should select
areas where conditions are ripe to try out the establish-
ment of agricultural producers' co-operatives of an
advanced (that is, entirely socialist) type. In some
areas where the work of building semi-socialist co-
operatives has been basically completed, plans may be
drawn up to transform co-operatives of an elementary
type into co-operatives of an advanced type, bearing
in mind the need for increased production, the degree
of the people's political consciousness and local eco-
nomic conditions. Such a transformation should be
carried out step by step-that is, by the trial establish-
ment of a few co-operatives of an advanced type and
a gradual, stage-by-stage increase in their number.
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In areas where many nationalities live together
co-operatives may be formed either by people of a
single nationality or of several different nationalities.
In areas where livestock breeding is the only
occupation of the people, experimental livestock breed-
ing co-operatives may also be established if conditions
permit.
Plans for agricultural co-operation in the various
areas should include such branches of the economy as
forestry, livestock breeding, fishing, salt production
and other occupations. They should also include
plans for supply and marketing co-operatives, credit
co-operatives, handicraft producers' co-operatives,
transport co-operatives, and plans for cultural and
educational work and for the growth of the Party and
the people's organizations.
In drawing up plans for agricultural co-operation,
the Party committees at all levels, and first and fore-
most the hsiang Party branches and county Party
committees, should simultaneously work out all-
embracing, long-term production plans based on local
conditions, all with the development of agriculture as
their central aim.
In planning agricultural co-operation, particular
attention should be paid to the plans for hsiang and
villages, because such plans are the foundation of the
whole plan of agricultural co-operation. Party com-
mittees at all levels should give the Party organizations
of a number of selected hsiang or villages guidance in
the preparation of comprehensive plans for stage-by-
stage development in the light of local conditions. This
will build up experience that helps to guide the whole
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movement. Such plans should include the following
measures:
1. The making of a concrete analysis of class
relationships in the village and the way in which
the mutual-aid and co-operative movement is being
organized.
2. The making of arrangements for the
establishment or expansion of mutual-aid teams and
agricultural producers' co-operatives stage by stage
and group by group. This should be done on a
voluntary basis, taking into account the degree of un-
derstanding of various strata of the peasantry, their
social relations and where they live and work.
3. The making of suitable arrangements to train
and supply key personnel for the establishment of
mutual-aid teams and agricultural producers' co-
operatives, taking into account the interests of the
whole movement for agricultural co-operation in the
hsiang or village.
These plans should be carefully studied by the
cadres and active elements among the peasants ; they
should be repeatedly discussed with the mass of the
people. Running things by simply issuing orders must
be avoided and necessary revisions made from time
to time as the work goes ahead.
The Party organizations of provinces (or autono-
mous regions), administrative regions (or autonomous
chow), counties (or autonomous counties), districts
and hsiang (or nationality hsiang) should pay close
attention to rural questions and energetically improve
the quality of their leadership in rural work. The
leading responsible comrades of local Party committees
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at all levels should spare no pains in learning to be-
come experts in agricultural co-operation. In short,
what is needed is initiative, not passivity; active
leadership, not its relinquishment.
Those in the leadership should base their work
on the method of learning from the mass movement,
familiarizing themselves with the actual situation,
summing up experience and adopting a flexible
approach in guiding the movement. Ignorance coupled
with unwillingness to learn, the issuing of arbitrary
orders and an irregular tempo of work-these are
things which violate the principles on which the growth
of the movement must be founded in actual practice.
They represent subjectivism, not Marxism. There can
be no correct leadership unless such subjectivism is
opposed.
The leadership should respect and encourage
initiative and creative ability among the masses; it
should protect and foster these growing, developing
forces. To impede or discourage the growth of new
things emerging in society, instead of helping them
wholeheartedly, or to try and force their growth
artificially, in a rash and impetuous way, before con-
ditions are ripe, instead of taking appropriate measures
to foster their natural birth and development-are
both methods which injure the tender shoots of the
new. They are opportunist, not Marxist methods.
There can be no leadership unless such opportunism
is opposed.
The aim of the co-operative movement is to lead
about 110 million peasant households from individual
farming to collective farming and then go on to bring
about technical reform in agriculture; it is to eliminate
the last vestiges of capitalist exploitation in the rural
areas and establish socialism. This is a tremendous
change affecting the livelihood of several hundred
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million people, and it is inconceivable that difficulties
should not crop up. Opportunists and subjectivists
lose the ability to exercise sober judgement and over-
come the difficulties with which they are confronted,
either because they do not realize that they need to
rely on the masses and the Party, or because they
have no confidence in them. However, ours is a well-
tempered, well-steeled Party, a Marxist-Leninist Party
closely linked with the people. Throughout the thirty
years and more of its existence, our Party has weath-
ered many storms in the revolution and faced many
serious difficulties. But its close unity with the
masses enabled it to overcome such difficulties one by
one and lead the people's revolution to victory. The
building of socialism is the cause of hundreds of
millions of people. In the industrialization of our
country, in the building up of agricultural co-opera-
tion and in every other aspect of our work, we should
give full play to the creativeness and initiative of the
masses, work in a realistic spirit and shun complacency
and impetuosity. It is the conviction of the Sixth
Plenary Session that if we do this we shall overcome
all difficulties and go on to new and greater victories.
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EXPLANATORY NOTES TO THE DRAFT
DECISIONS ON AGRICULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
(A Speech Delivered on October 4, 1955 at the Sixth Plenary
Session of the Seventh Central Committee of
the Communist Party of China)
Comrade Mao Tse-tung's report on agricultural
co-operation, delivered on July 31, 1955 at the meet-
ing of secretaries of provincial, municipal and
autonomous region committees convened by the Cen-
tral Committee of the Communist Party of China,
summed up many years' experience of the agricultural
co-operative movement in our country. It pointedly
criticized the main ideological errors-Rightist errors
-now existing in our Party on the question of ex-
panding agricultural co-operation, and gave policy
directives on a series of questions, such as the neces-
sity and possibility of agricultural co-operation, the
practical way forward and the steps to be taken, and
the way to lead agricultural co-operation. These
directives of Comrade Mao Tse-tung have enabled all
our Party comrades to prepare themselves ideologically
and organizationally for the coming upsurge in the
socialist mass movement in the countryside, and to
avoid serious mistakes at this vital turning point in
history.
On the basis of Comrade Mao Tse-tung's report,
the Political Bureau of the Central Committee has
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prepared draft Decisions on Agricultural Co-operation
which are now submitted to this plenary session. As
I am in charge of part of the work in the Rural Work
Department of the Central Committee, the Political
Bureau has appointed me to give explanations of the
draft Decisions.
I wish to draw attention to the following points:
THE POLICY OF EXPANDING AGRICULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
(1) The draft Decisions point out that the
nature of the peasant question is different in each
of the two stages of the revolution. Our Party must
adapt its policy in the rural areas to a new turn in
the revolution and to new changes in class relations
and in the forms of class struggle in the rural areas
since the land reform. Rightist mistakes made by
some comrades arise precisely from their failure to
see this new situation and the new changes.
As you all know, our Party's general line in the
period of transition has three parts: socialist in-
dustrialization, socialist transformation of agriculture
and handicrafts, and socialist transformation of
capitalist industry and commerce. These parts can-
not be separated one from the other, because the work
of socialist construction and socialist transformation
covers the whole national economy. A socialist
economy must include the two main branches of pro-
duction-industry and agriculture. As Comrade Mao
Tse-tung pointed out in his report, socialist industrial-
ization is not something that can be carried out in
isolation, separate from agricultural co-operation ; our
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country must, therefore, adopt the policy of keeping
agricultural co-operation in step with socialist in-
dustrialization. We cannot stand with one foot planted
on socialist industry and the other on a small-peasant
economy. The victory of socialism is unthinkable un-
less we win over the five hundred million strong rural
population to take part in socialist construction. There
is a rising tide of socialist industrial construction; and
in view of this, it is highly significant that Comrade
Mao Tse-tung has in good time put the expansion of
agricultural co-operation as an important item on the
agenda of work for the whole Party.
(2) Our Party led the bourgeois-democratic
revolution for almost thirty long years. The work of
every comrade in the Party centred round the struggle
for victory in this revolution. It is quite natural,
therefore, that some comrades are not mentally pre-
pared for the transition from this stage of the
revolution to the stage of socialist revolution. But
our Party has Comrade Mao Tse-tung at its head and
is armed with Marxism-Leninism; even when it was
working to overthrow the system of land ownership by
feudal landlords, it was preparing to lead the peas-
ants on from the point where the land was returned
to the tillers to socialist co-operation. Comrade Mao
Tse-tung in his report recalled the history of the
agricultural co-operative movement in our country;
this is also the history of the gradual putting into
practice of the policy of our Party on agricultural co-
operation.
It would be as well for us to review Comrade Mao
Tse-tung's exposition of this Party policy in his works
written in various periods. As you all know, as early
as the time of the First Revolutionary Civil War
Comrade Mao Tse-tung, in his Report of an Investiga-
tion into the Peasant Movement in Hunan, described
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the co-operative movement as an important part of
the peasant movement, though, in view of actual
conditions at that time, mention was made only of
supply and marketing co-operatives and credit co-
operatives.
During the Second Revolutionary Civil War,
Comrade Mao Tse-tung, drawing on the experience of
mutual-aid working groups and ploughing teams
created by the masses in the revolutionary bases,
pointed out the great role played in agricultural pro-
duction by this kind of mutual aid in labour (that is,
co-operative organizations for agricultural produc-
tion). (See Comrade Mao Tse-tung's Survey of
Changkang Hsiang.)
During the War of Resistance to Japanese
Aggression, Comrade Mao Tse-tung gave two famous
speeches, On Co-operation and Let Us Get Organized,
in which he called on the people in all the anti-
Japanese bases to organize this rudimentary form of
mutual-aid production group in large numbers on a
voluntary mass basis. Later, in other works (such
as On Coalition Government), Comrade Mao Tse-tung
continued to draw attention to this question. At the
Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Com-
mittee of the Party in 1949, speaking of economic
construction after the liberation of the country, Com-
rade Mao Tse-tung said:
If we have only a state sector in the national
economy and no co-operative sector, it is impos-
sible to lead the individual economy of the
labouring people gradually on to the road of col-
lectivization ; we cannot consolidate the pro-
letariat's leadership in the political power of the
state. Anyone who ignores or underestimates
this point will be making a grave mistake.
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After the founding of the People's Republic of
China, the Central Committee of our Party, on the
basis of Comrade Mao Tse-tung's views, passed the
"Decisions on Mutual Aid and Co-operation in
Agricultural Production" in December 1951, and the
"Decisions on the Development of Agricultural Pro-
ducers' Co-operatives" in December 1953. All this
shows that the Party has consistently adhered to the
policy of agricultural co-operation ; this is not some-
thing put forward all of a sudden. Some of our com-
rades are somewhat taken aback by this policy because
they have not had time to study the question seriously.
The main reason for this is that many of our comrades
joined the Party during the bourgeois-democratic
revolution against imperialism and feudalism, and
are acquainted, in their day-to-day practical work,
only with the programme of that revolution (that is,
our Party's minimum programme) but are not yet
familiar with the Party's programme relating to
socialist revolution (that is, our Party's maximum
programme). That is why, as with many other im-
portant new questions, we must take up the question
of agricultural co-operation again and devote serious
study to it; and in the course of our study we must
realize what our mistakes are and correct them, so
as to correctly grasp our Party's principles and policy,
and raise our knowledge of Marxism-Leninism to a
higher level. That is the task confronting all Party
comrades.
(3) The draft Decisions criticize the illusions
harboured by certain comrades who are quite content
with things as they are in the countryside, and with
the small-peasant economy. The Party must criticize
such mistaken ideas. At the Third Conference on
Mutual Aid and Co-operative Work called by the Cen-
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tral Committee in October 1953, Comrade Mao
Tse-tung had this to say :
If positions in the countryside are not held
by socialism, capitalism will assuredly occupy
them. How then can we say that we will take
neither the socialist nor the capitalist road?
It is an invariable law that, once the feudal land
system is overthrown, a struggle begins in rural areas
in which the choice lies between the capitalist and
the socialist roads. It is either the one or the other:
there is no middle course. Some comrades took quite
a radical stand in their attitude towards the
bourgeois-democratic revolution, but once they pass
through that stage of the revolution, they remain quite
content with the peasants' having got back their land.
So they loiter at the crossroads, between socialism and
capitalism, and are actually more interested in pre-
serving the small-peasant economy than in giving a
lead in its transformation to a socialist agriculture.
Such comrades fail to realize that a small-peasant
economy is not a paradise for the peasantry, but a
garden in which capitalism grows. We have Lenin's
dictum on this:
Small production engenders capitalism and
the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spon-
taneously, and on a mass scale.
It is impossible to compromise with a small-peasant
economy. To entertain such an idea is mere self-
deception.
We can cite plenty of facts to prove that where
the mutual-aid and co-operative movement has grown,
the poor peasants in general have rapidly improved
their economic condition, the tendency towards Cass
differentiation has been slight, the grain question has
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been easily solved and a lively spirit prevails in the
villages. On the other hand, where the mutual-aid
and co-operative movement has failed to take root or
its growth has been slight, in such places, even though
the landlords no longer own the land, even though the
peasants are, to a greater or lesser extent, living bet-
ter, there are still many poor peasants whose economic
condition has not improved, there is already the begin-
ning of a new trend towards class differentiation, with
some poor peasants again losing their land, some old
middle peasants sinking to the status of poor peasants,
and a certain number of new rich peasants emerging.
In places like this we have run into a fair amount of
trouble in our work, and, taking advantage of this
backward state of affairs, landlords, rich peasants and
all sorts of counter-revolutionary elements are at-
tempting a come-back.
The recent report of the Kansu Provincial Party
Committee to the Central Committee said that some
comrades feared there might be "disturbances" or that
"emperors" might arise if we gave the co-operative
movement its head. Facts, however, prove that
"emperors" do not spring up in places where the
mutual-aid and co-operative movement has grown,
where socialism has dug itself in and broadened out,
where the peasants have reached a higher level of
political consciousness fairly fast. They spring up in
places where the level of political consciousness among
the peasants is low, where the co-operative movement
has not taken root, where the struggle against
feudalism has not been properly carried out. From
the Kansu Provincial Party Committee's report we
reach the conclusion that the growth of co-operation
is the only way to guarantee the peasants the land
they hold, to go on consolidating the worker-peasant
alliance, to strengthen the leadership of the working
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class in that alliance after land reform, and to make any
counter-revolutionary come-back utterly impossible.
(4) There is bound to be some resistance to the
transformation to a socialist agriculture. It is in-
conceivable that there should not be. What Comrade
Mao Tse-tung's report sets out to do is precisely to
destroy the ideas behind this resistance. Agricultural
producers' co-operatives are a newly emerging force,
and we know that any such force encounters resist-
ance from conservative forces. The agricultural co-
operative movement will be no exception.
The conservative forces are two. On the one
hand, there is the class enemy-the landlords, rich
peasants and other capitalist exploiters in the country-
side. On the other, there is the spontaneous tendency
towards capitalism inherent in the dual character of
the peasants (mainly well-to-do middle peasants)
with all the prejudices and customs inseparable from
prolonged individual farming. Since such forces do
exist in society it is natural that they are reflected
in our Party in various forms. This is specially true
of the sentiments of some well-to-do middle peasants.
The recent dissolution of large numbers of co-opera-
tives, the acts of "drastic compression," certainly
originated in the conservative outlook of some of our
comrades who are content with the small-peasant
economy. Such misguided activity, viewed as a social
phenomenon, is not accidental, but reflects pressure
from the bourgeoisie and the rich peasants or the well-
to-do middle peasants who tend to move spontaneously
in the direction of capitalism. On the one hand, we
have the peasant masses (and first and foremost, the
active elements among the poor peasants and the
lower sections of both the old and the new middle
peasants) who have the active desire to follow the
Party's lead and organize co-operatives. On the other
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hand, we have the bourgeoisie and the rich peasants
or the well-to-do middle peasants with the spontane-
ous tendency towards capitalism, who want to stifle
it. That is the contradiction that exists in our society.
The comrades who make mistakes fail to see the
two sides of this contradiction. They do not realize
that if we are to consolidate the worker-peasant
alliance, we need, on the one hand, to give full play
to the peasants' active desire to take the road to so-
cialism, and, on the other, to continue to reform and
overcome the backward ideas they still have. Such
comrades, as Comrade Mao Tse-tung points out,
"usually take the standpoint of the bourgeoisie and
the rich peasants or that of the well-to-do middle peas-
ants who have a spontaneous tendency to take the
capitalist road. They think in terms of the few, rather
than take the standpoint of the working class and
think in terms of the whole country and people."
That is why they find themselves in an extremely
awkward position among the peasant masses. On the
one hand, they publicize the general line among them
and call on them to take the socialist road ; on the
other, they refuse to approve the setting-up of co-
operatives, or impose restrictions on those already in
being by invoking "countless taboos and command-
ments." On the one hand, they want to train the more
active elements among the peasants to organize co-
operatives. On the other, in some places such strange
things take place as actually "training active elements
to withdraw from the co-operatives" or "convening a
conference of co-operative members who want to quit
them, so pursuing the `task' of compression." Some
peasants say, "The general line calls on us to take the
road of co-operation, but when we start our co-opera-
tives, you refuse to give your approval and prevent
us from taking that road." Others complain : "You
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told us that small-peasant economy was no good. Now
you are deliberately telling us to go back to individual-
ism." Some cadres say, "We've learnt to organize
co-operatives. We've never been taught how to scrap
them !" These are all legitimate complaints.
But a newly emerging force is irresistible. Every-
one knows that when our Party was first formed, when
it was leading the peasant revolution and guerilla
warfare and establishing bases, many people refused
to recognize it because at the outset it was small. But
what happened? Our Party and the newly emerging
force which it represented triumphed, and those who
refused to recognize it were the ones who failed. Those
who refused to recognize the Party finally had to do
so. Nowadays there are many people who adopt an
attitude of "non-recognition" of the co-operatives.
They will fail too.
What lesson can we draw from all this? That
we must shake off the dead hand of conservative
forces ; that we must look ahead ; that we must pay
attention to those things among the people which are
new and positive. We must not keep looking back,
only seeing what is backward and negative. As the
draft Decisions say, the leadership has a responsibility
to respect and encourage the creativeness and initiative
of the masses and protect this newly emerging force.
PRACTICAL WORK IN EXPANDING AGRICULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
Once we have the policy, the main thing is how
to do the work well.
(1) We must follow Comrade Mao Tse-tung's
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injunction to handle the work "in the light of actual
conditions," "work out proper measures suited to
varying local conditions and give timely guidance."
Comrade Mao Tse-tung said :
We should realize, here and now, that an
upsurge in socialist transformation will soon
come about all over the country's rural areas.
That is inevitable.
What do we mean by an upsurge? We mean the
stage at which the movement draws in the broad
masses and is no longer limited to a few active ele-
ments. This upsurge will come about not simply as
a result of what the Party's leading body or a few
individuals want, nor can it be forcibly created. It
will come about when objective conditions are ripe,
when the issue involves the broad masses, not only
a few people.
Some comrades say : "If the leadership says
there is an upsurge, then there must be an upsurge!"
This is a very thoughtless way of talking, to say the
least. Let us see why Comrade Mao Tse-tung chooses
the present moment to say that a nation-wide upsurge
in the agricultural co-operative movement is inevitable.
In his report we find that there are three main
reasons for this :
First, the tremendous expansion of our national
economy resulting from the First Five-Year Plan,
particularly, our socialist industrial construction and
its achievements, daily increase the peasants' en-
thusiasm for co-operation.
Secondly, China's mutual-aid and co-operative
movement already has a fairly long history; the move-
ment for mutual aid which has developed extensively
in various places has, in fact, laid foundations for
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organizing co-operatives. Moreover, the superior abil-
ity to increase output demonstrated by most of the
hundreds of thousands of co-operatives already formed
is an encouragement to great numbers of peasants.
Thirdly, this upsurge has already started in some
areas.
All this heralds a nation-wide upsurge in the
agricultural co-operative movement. If we fail to see
these signs, if we fail to discern this main trend in
our life, we shall inevitably be left behind by the
masses and, as Comrade Mao Tse-tung has said, in
this upsurge of co-operation, simply totter along like
a woman with bound feet, or become so stunned by
success as to be quite incapable of shouldering the
task of leadership. Of course, this is not to say that
the nation-wide co-operative movement will develop
everywhere according to a uniform pattern and ad-
vance in different places at the same rate. The draft
Decisions clearly state that development of the move-
ment will be uneven. It points out that in the main
three different types of situation exist in different
parts of our country. In view of this new situation,
where a national upsurge in the co-operative move-
ment is imminent, we must consider all the various
local differences that exist and pay suitable attention
to these differences at all times in our work. Only
by so doing can the agricultural co-operative move-
ment be set on a common path of healthy growth. In
May 1948, the Central Committee of the Party, giving
instructions on the work of land reform and the
strengthening of the Party, said:
It is necessary to train cadres to be skilled
at analysing the actual situation and deciding on
their task and method of work at a definite place
and time according to the actual conditions in
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different areas and their varying historical back-
grounds.
There is no doubt that this directive of the Central
Committee is just as applicable in leading the co-
operative movement today.
(2) This upsurge in the co-operative movement
comes about because, on the one hand, objective con-
ditions make it possible, and, on the other, because
of the hard and careful work the Party has put in.
It does not come about by itself. Comrade Mao
Tse-tung has pointed out that the key to running the
co-operative movement well is for the Party leadership
to be really in the lead ; the leading body of the Party
must throw itself heart and soul into the work ; it
must show initiative, enthusiasm and hearty welcome,
and so give leadership to the whole movement (see
the preface to How to Run Agricultural Producers'
Co-operatives). That is to say, it must be able to link
the Party's leadership with the enthusiasm of the
masses in organizing co-operatives. Provided the
Party goes on giving sound leadership, it is possible
to hasten the onset of this upsurge in co-operation.
On the other hand, if the Party fails to give good
leadership, there will be no upsurge even when con-
ditions are ripe for it; and even if an upsurge is already
in being, it will probably meet setbacks for want of
correct Party leadership. Isn't it true that in some
places where the upsurge actually started cadres and
people became downcast and despondent because it
was met with the wholly wrong policy of what was
called "drastic compression"?
Good leadership, in the first place, means that
leading Party organizations must take care not to ad-
vance blindly, they must show more foresight. To
achieve this, every province, county, district and
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hsiang should have a comprehensive plan and not
"allow things to be done piecemeal, tinkering with
things here and there" (preface to How to Run
Agricultural Producers' Co-operatives), as Comrade
Mao Tse-tung has said.
In his article "On Practice," Comrade Mao Tse-
tung wrote :
We often hear the remark made by a comrade
when he cannot bravely accept an assignment:
"I have no confidence." Why has he no confidence?
Because he has no systematic understanding of
the nature and conditions of the work or has had
little or even no contact with this kind of work ;
hence the laws governing it are beyond him.
Now on this question of co-operation, there are some
comrades who have no understanding of the situation
or understand only one side of the picture but not the
whole ; there are others who have quite a bit of mate-
rial to work on, but fail to apply the Marxist-Leninist
method of class analysis to the question. Such com-
rades cannot grasp the laws governing the co-operative
movement. They cannot see the essential, the main
aspects, and so they lack foresight and confidence in
their work. The result, as Stalin has said, is that
"they row conscientiously, pulling hard all the time;
their boat floats smoothly, with the current, but not
only don't they know whither the current is carrying
them, they do not wish to know."
Not long ago, in a report to the Central Com-
mittee, a Provincial Committee of the Party stated :
In carrying out the actual work, there are
many organs of the Party committee at every
level which have still failed to make a deep,
consistent and diligent study of the work of the
co-operatives, nor do they go very deep in their
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understanding of the key questions of the move-
ment or in summing up their experience in ex-
tending the movement. That is why, while we
can carry out measures which are correct, we also
accept measures which are wrong, even though
we have a feeling that they are not quite right.
This_ is really working in a daze! The reason why
the possession of "a comprehensive plan for co-
operation" can become an important method of putting
an end to this sort of daze is because such planning
makes it necessary for all Party bodies which have
a genuine sense of responsibility towards the revolu-
tion to strive to grasp the whole situation, and to study
it. They are then bound to learn to apply the Marxist-
Leninist method of class analysis in considering issues
that arise. In this way they gradually familiarize
themselves with what was formerly unfamiliar; they
gradually learn the laws of the co-operative move-
ment and this enables them to foresee things. Naturally
in drafting a comprehensive plan, especially in the
beginning, things are liable to happen very often
which are not quite right, and these must be sys-
tematically corrected in the light of the actual situa-
tion. However, things should be easier once we have
a plan-a plan which has been framed collectively as
a result of thorough and repeated surveys and study,
and which has been adopted only after the leadership
has issued it as a draft to all Party bodies lower down,
and after it has been thoroughly discussed and
amended at all levels from below. Such a plan will
encourage us to work energetically; it will remind
us to pay regular attention to and examine the various
problems which confront us in every field of our work.
As our movement develops, it will show us where we
are right and where we are wrong.
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(3) Pay attention to the relation between num-
bers and quality.
Between spring and summer of this year some
comrades advocated "lopping off some of the co-
operatives," their "theory" being that "when you've
got too many co-operatives, it's difficult to manage
them." This "theory" has gone bankrupt. What we
actually find in plenty of places is that the more co-
operatives are set up, the more active the masses are,
the fewer problems arise in the co-operatives, the
easier it is to improve and consolidate them, and the
greater their success in increasing yields. Why?
Because as more and more co-operatives are set up,
they attract more attention from the whole Party.
Then, because there is more opportunity to make com-
parisons between them and compete one with another,
they have the chance to exchange experience, the more
backward co-operatives have an incentive to catch up
with the more go-ahead, and that makes it far easier
for cadres to do a better job. Moreover, it stands to
reason that as the socialist positions expand while the
capitalist positions contract, more forces become avail-
able to withstand the spontaneous tendency towards
capitalism. However well a co-operative starts off, it
cannot, in the absence of large numbers of co-opera-
tives giving one another mutual encouragement and
co-ordinating production among themselves, expand
reproduction to a greater extent, and it is bound to
be seriously handicapped in its task of providing its
members with a better life. We can, therefore,
reasonably draw the conclusion that a change in
quantity will, at a certain stage, bring about a change
in quality : quality cannot be improved independently
of quantity. It is wrong to work on the supposition
that consolidation of the co-operatives can be divorced
from the work of increasing their number, or to make
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a sweeping generalization that the fewer co-operatives
there are, the easier it is to consolidate them.
That is not to say that we should go on to draw
another unwarranted conclusion from all this, and
imagine that the growth of co-operatives is simply a
question of numbers and that quality can be disregard-
ed. Success in agricultural co-operation is not meas-
ured simply by growth in numbers. As Comrade
Mao Tse-tung says,
Great emphasis must be placed on the quality
of the co-operatives. We must oppose any tend-
ency to neglect quality and concentrate solely on
increasing their number or bringing a greater
number of peasant households into them.
He makes the point that not only do co-operatives need
a series of checkings over to bring about improve-
ments after they have been formed, but that systematic
spade-work needs to be done before they are set up.
In that way the increase in number can be linked with
improved quality. Comrade Mao Tse-tung gave us the
warning: "Fight no battle that is not well prepared,
no battle whose outcome is uncertain," and added, "If
you want to be sure of the outcome, there must be
preparedness, full preparedness." That is by way of
reminding us that we cannot run a co-operative in a
slipshod way; we cannot work in the "help a plant to
grow by pulling it up" way.
Some Party members, quite content with their
formalistic approach and with no stomach for a mass
line which entails doing the hundred and one prepara-
tory jobs needed to establish a co-operative, resort to
compulsion and the giving of orders to satisfy their
love of impressive figures. There are even some who
imagine that "you can shout a few slogans and get
socialism in a few days' time." That, too, is a dis-
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tortion of Party policy, a distortion which kills the
enthusiasm of the masses for co-operatives. In no cir-
cumstances will the Party stand this sort of thing.
(4) Interlink plans for co-operation with pro-
duction plans.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung pointed out that land re-
form is a measure designed to break the shackles of
feudal relations of production. It is the first step
towards releasing the productive forces in agriculture.
"That is the first revolution."
Socialist co-operation is designed to transform
the relations of production, to switch them from an
individual economic basis to a collective one; it is
designed to break the shackles of capitalist relations
of production. That is the second step towards re-
leasing the productive forces in agriculture. "That
is the second revolution." Unless this second revolu-
tion is carried through, we cannot hope for any huge
growth in our productive forces.
Our peasants are industrious and hard-working.
But in the old days, as a result of the threefold yoke
of imperialism, feudalism and capitalism, the produc-
tive forces in agriculture were weak and our country
had a far lower yield per unit area of many farm
products than many capitalist countries. What must
we do to overcome this backwardness? Some comrades
pin their hopes on small-peasant economy. That is use-
less. The Central Committee of our Party has refuted
this mistaken idea. What then? Shall we put our
hopes on capitalism? The capitalist way of increasing
production is, as far as the mass of peasants are con-
cerned, a long road strewn with untold suffering. The
Party Central Committee has shown that we cannot
take that road. The only possible road for us to take
then is that of agricultural co-operation backed by a
socialist industry. In that way we can swiftly in-
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crease the productive forces of our country's agricul-
ture and enable it to catch up with and surpass
capitalist countries. All available data show that a
co-operative, if it works well, can, from the day it is
formed, start increasing production and go on doing
so year by year. There have been cases of co-opera-
tive members doubling their income in a matter of
four, five or six years. For our Chinese peasants who
have suffered so much for thousands of years, that is
something truly wonderful. The reason is clear: as
soon as the peasants get together and organize pro-
ductive work, they can begin to make use of their
tremendous latent productive power.
The Rural Work Department of the Heilungkiang
Provincial Committee recently published some mate-
rials summing up experience gained in agricultural
co-operation. "Investigation," it says, "shows that
during its first year the efficiency of labour of a co-
operative generally rises from 15 to 20 per cent above
that of mutual-aid teams, and 20 to 25 per cent more
use can be made of draught animals. This more effi-
cient use of means of production, including draught
animals and farm tools, makes it possible to divert
part of the productive forces to new production. If
all the 22,000 co-operatives in the province were well
managed, this means that we should have a productive
power equal to the labour of 150,000 people and over
100,000 beasts, besides considerable funds to organize
reproduction on an expanded scale. But this is not
all. The continual growth of the agricultural co-
operative movement will in future provide greater and
greater opportunities of increasing productive forces."
In other words, agricultural producers' co-operatives
have a far greater chance of making full use of favour-
able conditions to continually increase production.
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For this reason every co-operative, right from
the start, should set about drafting a plan for increas-
ing production. Every county, district, hsiang (or
village)-and particularly the hsiang (or village)-
should, at the same time as it makes comprehensive
plans for co-operation, draw up plans to increase pro-
duction in its area. Such comprehensive production
plans will, to a far greater extent than hitherto, give
the peasants a long-term target for building up agri-
culture based on actual local conditions and taking
into account the common interests of the various co-
operatives in the hsiang or village concerned. In this
connection, we do not have much experience to go on
at the moment, but we do know that as co-operatives
spring up group by group or area by area, the need for
an all-embracing production plan will be keenly felt.
Local Party committees at the various levels must pay
proper attention to this matter, and, drawing on the
good sense of the masses, start to make a study of it.
So much by way of explanation of some aspects
of the draft Decisions. I think these are the main
things I want to talk about. In his report Comrade
Mao Tse-tung said :
Needless to say, neither socialist indus-
trialization nor socialist transformation is easy.
A host of difficulties are bound to crop up as some
110 million peasant households turn from individ-
ual to collective management and go ahead with
technical reforms in agriculture. But we should
have confidence that our Party is capable of
leading the masses to overcome such difficulties.
We should not shirk difficulties, for instance, by being
too scared to take the affairs of the co-operatives
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP83-00418R006200350016-7
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP83-00418R006200350016-7
firmly in hand. It is even more important that we
should not panic in the face of difficulties and, for
instance, start "lopping off" large numbers of co-
operatives. On the contrary, we must at all times
hold ourselves ready to surmount difficulties that may
crop up as we push ahead. Even if difficulties are
only local, it is still wrong to neglect them.
The policy of co-operation laid down by the
Central Committee of our Party is the right one and
the steps taken to carry it out are sound. Can there
be any doubt that, if all Party comrades unite and
follow the lead of the Central Committee of the Party
headed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, if they keep close
to the masses and work hard and well, we shall ac-
complish this historic task? I should say, none.
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 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP83-00418R006200350016-7
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP83-00418R006200350016-7