CURRENT INTELLIGENCE STAFF STUDY MAO TSE-TUNG AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

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• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 19, 2006
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• Publication Date: April 10, 1961
• Content Type: IS

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OI''11,lCI;1L, (1,51.; ()Ni,
] 0 April 1901.
OCT No. ]18G/G1
Copy No.
c'URnFN'I' INTFI,.i.,TGENCE STAFF STUDY
b1AO TSE-TUNG AND IIISTORICAL AMATERIALIS;LM
I. REVOLUTION
(Reference Title:
Office of Current Intelligent'
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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CURRENT INTELLIGENCE STAFF STUDY
MAO TSE-TUNG AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
I. REVOLUTION
This is a working paper, the second of a. series
of papers on Mao Tse-tung as a Marxist philosopher.
The first was addressed to Mao's alleged contribu-
tions to dialectical materialism. Others will be
addressed to his alleged contributions (some of them
genuine) to other aspects of historical materialism.
The Sino-Soviet Studies Group would welcome com-
ment on this paper. The paper, like the first, was
written by of the China Division of the
Sino-Sovie
Bloc Area,
so comment should again be ad-
resse d' the Adt i;n coord Thator 'of` the SS GG, who
will forward it to
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SUMMARY
Chineso Communist spokesmen acknowledge that Mao's early
analysts Of I;,he Chinese revolution owes a general debt to
Lenin and Staalin, but they minimize that debt, and they con-
coal the importance of Comintern directives in Mao's early
thinking. All of their specific claims for this early work
appear to be spurious. Mao's alleged "development" of the
concept of "leadership of the proletariat" in 1926 is not an
advance on Lenin's position in 1912, and even his agreement
with Lenin on this point was inserted into Mao's works many
years later. Mao's alleged discovery that revolutions in
backward countries are primarily peasant revolutions was
anticipated by Lenin, Stalin, and other Chinese Communist
leaders such as Peng Pai. Similarly, Lenin, not Mao, first
emphasized the importance of the poor peasants in a revolu-
tion, and, with respect to the responsiveness of the poor
peasants to Communist party leadership, again the Chinese Com-
munists have fal:ed a date to credit Mao with making this point
years before the fact. Further, Mao's alleged discovery that
a part of the bourgeoisie was friendly to the revolution was
simply a repetition of Lenin and Stalin.
Subsequently, Mao made two or perhaps three contributions
to the theory of revolution. One of these, although forced on
him by circumstance, was the concept of an isolated rural base
area. Another, although taken in part (perhaps in largest
part) from Chu Te, was his doctrine on guerrilla warfare; So-
viet writers themselves have paid Mao tribute in this field.
The possible third, a development aver his early thinking,
was Mao's moderate and conciliatory line toward capitalists
and the capitalist economy during a revolution, a policy which
seems to have been troublesome to Moscow at the time. However,
another of Mao's concepts of the middle years, the "paper
tiger"--enjoining Communists to have faith in their eventual
trium.ph, but to respect the enemy in particular situations--
which is presented as a "new development of enormous signifi-
cance" in theory, is simply a platitude.
The Chinese Communists believe that Mao's contributions
to the theory of revolution-?-whether false, true, or platitu-
dinous--are applicable to other backward countries. For ex-
ample, the gloss on Mao's selected works contends that other
"colonial peoples," holding rural base areas, can wage a long
war to encircle the cities and win a total victory, just as
the Chinese Communists had done.
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MAO TSE-TUNG AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
1. REVOLUTION
Introduction
In his Dialectical and Historical Materialism of October
1908, Stalin defines historical materialism as "an applica-
tion of the principles of dialectical materialism to the
phenomena of the life of society, to the study of society
and its history." (1) This definition is too general and
obscures Lenin's and Stalin's special way of treating the
.idea of historical materialism.
Marx and Engels had discussed historical materialism
with primary emphasis on the way in which the material pro-
duction of goods is organized and the relations between the
classes producing them. Revolution would occur almost
spontaneously as the inevitable stages of class struggle
developed. In their writings, the outline of the future
society was vague.
Lenin and Stalin shifted the emphasis slightly but de-
cisively, concentrating in their works more on the tactics of
revolution and less on the modes of production. That is, as
actual leaders as well as theorists, they constantly attempted
to gauge the strength of political and military forces and the
possibilities of "pushing the revolution forward," relegating
theoretical analysis of economic factors in any country to a
secondary position. Thus Lenin says that, "we Marxists have
always been proud of the fact that by a strict analysis of
the mass forces and mutual class relations we have been able
to determine the expediency of this or that form of mass strug-
gle." (2) The same is true of Mao Tse-tung, who, in his first
Marxist-Leninist work (3), Analysis of the Various Classes in
Chinese Society of March 1926 /hereafter, Analysis/, centers
his attention on estimating th`e revolutionary po ential of
social classes in China.
Claims of Mao's Originality
Chinese Communist writers have agreed with Soviet writers
that Mao Tse-tung used Lenin's and Stalin's ideas in his
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aci;.tl.ysis of the Chineso revolution. '1'11u.?; Chang Ju--hs:i.n states
in 1.953 that in the period of the First Rov~olution.tiry Civil
var' (192/1-1927) , "0,-.-.ado Mao ri'.;o tt~r.f?
?... to faithful student
and comrade...-in-arms of Stalin, uphold the standpoint of Lenin
and Stalin on problems of the revolt ion in China." (4)
Chang, however, i;liplies that there was an element of
Urii; inaJ :l'ty Jr. Mao's analysis: "in 1926 ('the time of the
publication of Stalin's Prospects of tip: Chinese Revolution)
Comrade Mao Tse-tung pub. islieu his Analysis , ' `ri `' h1c > he used
as a basis the theories of Lenin an 7- `ta- n to arrive at a
similar conclusion with that of Stalin on tho fundamental
problems of the Chinese revolution." (5) That is, Chang seems
to feel that any careful Communist reader will know that Mao's
Analysis was written before Stalin's Prospects, as these works
were published in March 1926 and November l=5 respectively.
Chang's implied claim that Mao ;vas an independent thinker
on revolution in 1926 is supported by politburo alternate
Chen Po-ta, who insists that, "Both in 1927...and afterwards
..,.opportunis,ts...obstructed the dissemination inside the
Chinese party of Stalin's many work:: on the Chinese question.
There were also language difficulties and the counterrevolu-
tionary blockade. For these reasons, many comrades in our
party who were actually leading the Chinese revolution did
not have an opportunity to make a systematic study of Stalin's
many works on China..'. Comrade Mao Tse-tung was also one of
them. It was only after the cheng feng movement in 1942 that
Stalin's works on China were sys ma'ci.cally edited by our
party...but despite these obstacles in dissemination, Comrade
Mao" Tse-tung has been able to reach the same conclusions as
Stalin on many fundamental profile:;rs through his independent
thinking." (6) Another writer :says that only Stalin's Prob-
blems of the Chinese Revolution of April 1927 was "published
and circulated" ated" in China, at some unspecified date between 1927
and 1936 "under conditions of bitter fighting and White -terror."
(7)
But neither. Chang nor Chen snakes any reference to the
fact that the real tactical policies, and the theoretical
justifications of these policies, were sent to China in the
form of numerous Comintern directives with Stalin's approval.
(8)
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"Leadership of the Proletariat"
Chen Po-ta claims that Mao "cons:istoutly adhered to...
the Lenin-St,tl:tn theory concerning the leadership of the
proletariat and developed this theory in a concrete manner."
(9) But how Mao had done this, Chen never informs us. Chang
Ju-hsin implies that Mao developed this theory in Analysis
by pointing out that, "The national bourgeoisie's a in o es-
tablishing a state under its own rule is impracticable." (10)
Chang continues: "The leader of the Chinese bourgeois-demo-
cratic revolution against nrx perialism and feudalism will not
be the national bourgeoisie, but the proletariat," as this is
a "bourgeois-democrat i.c revolution of a nnw type." (11) To
settle the matter decisively, lie quotes from Analysis: "The
leading force in our revolution is the industrxa proletariat."
This is merely Lenin's view of proletarian leadership in
a revolution against feudalism--one of his revisions of Marx
and Engels. According to Marx and Engels, revolution in
modern times will progress in two distinct stages: first, a
"bourgeois, democratic" revolution places the bourgeoisie in
power after an attack upon feudalism and monarchy, and, second,
a "socialist" revolution slowly ripens and overthrows the
bourgeoisie, establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Thus Engels says in 1848: "Fight on bravely then, gentlemen
of capital. We need your help: We need even'your rule upon
occasions. For it is you who must clear from our path the
relics of the Middle Ages and of absolute monarchy. You must
abolish monarchy, you must centralize, you must change the
more or less destitute classes into real proletarians--re-
cruits for us. It is your factories and trade connections
'that must lay 'the foundations for the liberation of the
proletariat. Your reward shall be a brief period of rule.
You shall dictate laws, and bask in the sun of your own ma-
jesty. But remember, 'The hangman's foot is upon the thres-
hold.. ' " (12)
In his Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic
Revolution of Jun e-duty 1905, however, Lenin insists tha he
proletariat must not be a subsidiary to the bourgeoisie, and
that it must become the leader of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution. (13) "Marxism teaches the proletariat not to
keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent
to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be as-
sumed by the bourgeoisie." (14) "The proletariat, being, by
virtue of its very position, the most advanced and the only con-
sistently revolutionary class, is for that very reason called
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OT~ AFIC:'1A!., USE, (.'. NL.Y
upon to play .the leading part in the general democratic
revolutionary movement in Russia." (15) In the Agrarian
Program of Social Democracy of November-December-7170 enin
i~lrst e1 nes t e our' leis-democratic revolution in Russia
as a "peasant revolution" and then says that, "The proletariat
must in its own interest assume the leadership of the peasant
revolution." (16)
Turning his attention to colonial revolutions--"national
liberation movements in the East"--Lenin at first does not
stress proletarian leadership of these "bourgeois, democratic"
revolutions and seems to have believed that his Two Tactics
thesis need not be applied to China's bourgeois revoolu ?i~'' on
of 1911. In hi Democracy and Narodism in China of July
1912, Lenin contrasts he''? bourgeoisie o he West who are
"rotten to the core" with Sun Yat-sen, "a revolutionary demo-
crat, who symbolizes the nobility and heroism inherent in
a class that is on the rise." He says: "The Western bour-
geoisie is in a state of decay; it is already confronted by
its grave-digger--the proletariat. In Asia, in contrast,
there is still.a bourgeoisie capable of championing sincere,
militant, consistent democracy, a worthy comrade of France's
great enlighteners and great leaders of the close of the 18th
century." /Lenin's emphasis]' (17) Continuing in an orthodox
Marxist vein, Lenin points-'to the "virgin naivete" of Sun's
idea that "capitalism can be "prevented' in China," (18) and
assigns the small Chinese proletariat only the task of crit-
icizing Sun's utopias while it "defencl_.and develops the revolu-
tionary-democratic core of his political and agrarian program."
(19)
By November 1912, however, Lenin is prepared to return
to his Two Tactics thesis of proletarian (that is, Communist
party) 'leaclerZ-lip of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In
his Regenerated China, he says: "China's freedom was won by
an alliance o peasant democracy and liberal bourgeoisie.
Whether the peasants, without the leadership of a proletarian
party, will be able to retain their democratic positions
against the liberals, who are only waiting for a suitable no-
men to shift to the Right--this the near future will show."
(20) /Lenin's emphasis?
When, therefore, Satlin in May 1925 calls on students
in the University of the Toilers of the East to "ensure the
hegemony of the proletariat" in the national-revolutionary,
bloc (21) and Mao in March 1926 designates the industrial
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proletariat as the "leading force" in the bourgeois-democratic
revolution, they are not e.:pounding a now idea.
Returning to Chang's and Chen's claims, they are open to
another objection: at no point in the original 1926 version
of Analysis does Mao designate the proletariat as the "lead-
irig'r or c Why not? Because Mao and the other Chinese Com-
munist leaders at that time were carrying out Comintern di-
rectives, which designated the Kuomintang (KMT) as a bloc of
four classes and as the "lea-dbi;l" of China's democratic rev-
olution. The sentence which Chang is emphatic in quoting--
"The leading force in our revolution is the industrial pro-
letariat"--was inserted into the 1951 version of Analysis.
(22)
The Importance of the Peasants
Chang Ju-hsin also claims that Mao solved the problem of
allies in the Chinese revolution. Chang states that, "Comrade
Mao Tse-tung developed Lenin's and Stalin's directives on the
special and important role of the peasant question in colonial
and semicolonial revolutionary movements, making a complete
estimate of the peasants' revolutionary attitude. He said
that the poor and middle peasants, who compromise more than
80 percent of China's population, are the most important and
reliable ally of the proletariat in the democratic revolu-
tion." (23) Analysis (March 1926) and Report of an Investiga-
tion Into the Peasant Movement in Hunan Marc 2 Bre-
a er, epor , ang continues, con ain Mao's contribution.
In Analysis, Mao says that, "The overwhelming majority
of the semi tenant peasants, together with the poor peasants,
constitute a very large section of the masses in the country-
side. The 'peasant problem' is essentially their problem."
(24) Mao centers his attention on the poor peasants even
more forcefully in Report, the most striking thing Le ever
wrote:
The main force in the countryside which has al-
ways put up the bitterest fight is the poor peasants.
From the period of underground organization to that
of open organization, the poor peasants have fought
militantly all along. They accept most willingly the
leadership of the Communist party. They are the dead-
liest enemies of the local bullies and bad gentry and
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Ut~'I'!Cl.~~ I., US111
OtVI.. Y
attack their strongholds without the slightest hesita-
tion.... They are the backbone of the Peasant As-
sociation, the vanguard in overthrowing the feudal
forces, c,nd~~. he ,Fdremostilharoes ivho -have accomplished
the great revolutionary undertaking' left unaccomplished
for many years. Without the poor peasants (the 'riff-
raff' as the gentry call them) it would never have been
possible to bring about in the countryside the present
state of'.revoldtton;,` t6? overthtow, tiie local bullies and
the bad gentry, or to complete the democratic revolu-
tion. Being the most revolutionary, the poor peasants
have won the leadership in the Peasant Association....
This leadership of the poor peasants is absolutely
necessary. Without the poor peasants there can a no
revolution. To rejec them is to reject the revo u-
oi n. TS-attack them is to attack the revolution. The
general. direction they have taken in the revolution
has never been wrong. emphasis in original 1926
Report7 (25)
According to Chang, therefore, Mao demonstrated original-
ity by' maintaining' that (1) revolutions in backward countries
(such as China) are primarily peasant revolutions and (2) the
poor peasants are the most important force and reliable ally
in these revolutions.
1. Revolutions in Backward Countries Are Primarily
Peasant Revolutions
In view of Lenin's statemehts as well as Stalin's and
those of several Chinese Communists, Mao appears nbt to have
made a contribution to theory on this point. For it was
Lenin who departed from Marx's reluctance to use the peasants
as an important revolutionary fighting force. In his Agrarian
Program of Social Democracy of November-December 1907, Lenin
emphatically states that, The agrarian question /In Russia7
is the basis of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.... We
must have a clear idea of the character and significance of
precisely the peasant agrarian revolution as one of the
varieties of bourgeois revolution." Further: "The peasant
revolution, as Kautsky justly pointed out, leads also to state
bankruptcy, i.e., it damages the interests not only of the
Russian, but of the whole international bourgeoisie." Fur-
ther: "A section o,: the Marxists, the Right wing, persistent-
ly made shift with an abstract, stereotyped conception of the
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bourgeois revolution, and failed to perceive the peculiar
features of the present bourgeois revolution, which is
precisely a peasant revolution...,. The Bolsheviks, on the
other hand ...singled out the concept of peasant revolution
as one of the varieties of bourgeois revolution.,.. Thus
we see that Plekhanov completely collapsed on the ques-
tion of fundamentals of the general Social -Democratic?tac-
tics in a bourgeois revolution that can be victorious only
as a peasant revolution." (26)
Later, turning to the task of formulating Communist
tactics for backward countries of the Near East and Asia,
Lenin in effect sees only the peasants as the revolutionary,
force. It is as a proponent of peasant revolutionary move-
ments that Lenin speaks to the Second Congres of the
Comintern in July 1920:
The most important feature of backward coun-
tries is that the precapitalist relations still
prevail there and that, therefore, there can be no
question of a purely proletarian movement in them.
There is almost no industrial proletariat in those
countries.... The idea of soviet organization is
a simple one, and it can be applied not only to pro-
letarian conditions but also to feudal and se*ifi feudal
peasant relations ...sve must base the theses of the
Communist International on the assumption that the
;peasant soviets...are applicable not only to capital-
1st countries but also to the countries of precapital-
ist conditions, and that it is the absolute. duty of
thr.: Communist parties.-'.to propagate the idea of peas-
ant soviets, the Soviets of the toiling people every-
where ...and to try, wherever conditions permit, to
create peasart soviets or goviets of the toilers. (27)
Actually, despite Lenin's directives on the importance
of peasant revolutions for backward countries, most of the
very early leaders of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) di-
rected their activities toward organizing the urban working
class, which was small in numbers. (28) But at least one
prominent Chinese Communist leader, Peng Pal, who in the
late .1 PO's became a politburo member, carried out Lenin's
instruction to organize peasant doviets.
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In 1921, one year after he became a member of the CCP,
Peng Pai w. nt t6'tI Ic wanatung countryside to carry out "organ-
ization and propaganda" work among the peasants. ?fie organ-
ized the first village peasants' association in China in
Kwangtung province which, by September 1922, had enrolled
more than 500 members, On 1 January 1923, the Haifeng County
Peasants' Association was formally established with a mem-
bership of about 20,000 families of i00y 000 persons, or one-
quarter of the population of the county-,-. By mid-1923, he
established the Kwangtung Provincial Peasant's Association
and raised the slogan, "Down with the landowners; Long live
the peasants!" Demands for reduction of land rent became
demands for its total 'abolition. Peasant struggles against
landlords and local officials spread throughout Kwangtung
Province and into Hupeh and Hunan. Peasant associations
were: firmly established in Honan by September 1925. In
Hunan, by late November 1926, there were 54 hsien, with a
total registered membership in the peasants assoc ations of
1,071,137:'. By January 1927--when Mao began his investiga-
tion--this number exceeded 2 ' 000, 000v (29) Peng?Pai set up
the first peasant soviet in China--the Haifeng Soviet Repub-
lic of Kwangtung--in November 1927. (30)
Peasant revolution was rapidly developing in the rural
areas when the KMT began its own revolutionary activities
among the peasants in 1924. '!n August 1926, the KMT Peasant
Department published its declaration of Current Tactics for
the Peasant Movement in Hunan, which extensively discussed
policies for expanding And strengthening Hunan's peasant
associations, (31) especially among the "poor peasants."
Mao did not go out to inspect these Hunan associations for
the Central Committee of the CCP until early 1927, when he
was also training activists for the peasant movement for the
KbiT.
Thus Mao was not a newcomer as a peasant organizer and
inspector. Moreover, he was not the first Chinese Communist
to emp"(asize the importance of the peasants.
In addition to Peng Pai, several Communist writers work-
ing with the K111T's Peasant Department placed almost exclusive
emphasis on the peasants. In August 1925, they were desig-
nated the "major force for destroying feudalism" by the Com-
munist Kan Nai-kuang. Kan says that, "The peasant class is
the basic class of the national revolution. In other words,
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the peasantry is the main force of the national revolution."
He explicitly reverses the view held by Marxists, and, more
often than not, by Leninists, on the role of the peasants
as an ally of the proletariat: "We consider that the work-
ing class is the most reliable ally of the peasants." (32)
Stalin, too, had underscored the importance of a peas-
ant revolution for China before Mao stressed the point. Thus
the Theses of the Seventh Plenum of the Comitern Executive
Committee which Stalin and Bukharin drafted with the assist-
ance of Tan Ping-shan, the Chinese Communist delegate, in
November 1926 states:
Not to deal boldly with the agrarian question,
not to support in their entirety the political and
economic aims of the peasant masses would be a real
danger ifor'.the revolution. It would be wrong not
to place the program of the peasant movement first
in the program of national liberation for fear' of
alienating the uncertain and perfidious cooperation
of a part of the capitalist class. (33)
In his Prospects of the Revolution in China of November 1926,
Stalin considered as correct the view o3'-Tan Ping-shan, who
maintained that the immediate satisfaction of the most urgent
peasant demands is an "essential condition for the victory
of the Chinese revolution." (34)
Peasant revolution was in the air. Inasmuch as land
held by KMT officers was not to be confiscated, 10-IT dele-
gate Shao Li-tzu reported to the November 1926 Comintern
plenum that, "Comrade Chiang Kai-shek declared in his speech
before the members of the KMT that the Chinese revolution
would be unthinkable if it were nuable to solve correctly
the agrarian, i.e., the peasant question." (35)
2. The Poor Peasants are the Most Important Force and
Reliable Ally
Lenin, not Mao, first underscored the importance of the
or peasants in a revolutionary movement. In his Agrarian
r-5g-ram of Social Democracy of 1907, Lenin speaks of the
"poor peasantry" Wilch he describes as crushed by the feudal
landlords. He also distinguishes a small group of "middle
peasants, " who possess' land sufficient to conduct farming in
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Oil '!',/ 1, ! i, r: ( ,%i vI , y
a L ).I vrabie? way, It ~.;mai.1. ;,roup or "wrll-to-do Prat ;ants, ,~ and
"l'audal laLifundia." (;1G) In a work written two years oar-
I Icr, lie Hpualc ; of a "rural proletariat" and says that "we
lay the main emphasis on...thu npecial organization o.e the
1'ura:l. pt-olotarl;tt into a class party,.-.we are keen on rovolu-
t.i.onary pe.u.4 tnt committees.... Class antagonism between 1e
rfL-ai pro. r arj'at a I-7f "peasant bourgeoisie is inovitablo,
and Nye reveal. it in advance, explain it and prepare for the
st.ru(;l;le on the basis of it,.," (37) /fenin s cmp;,as sy
Thus Lenin seems to use the designation "rural proletariat"
as Engels had done in his The Peasant Question in France and
Gormauy of 1894, that :ls, as j~oor arm worcers a:9 d:Ls in:~t
from bif; and small landowners. For Lenin, it is the rural
proletariat who will mako the revolution in the countryside.
Returning to Mao's Report, viewed in its time and cir-
cumstances, Communists seem not to have considered it as a
heresy. Because rural revolution was rapidly increasing in
1925 and because Stalin had designated it the "essential
condition for the victory of the Chinese revolution" in No-
vem'ber 1926, the Report of March 1927 seemed appropriate to
the time. It apparent y was a fairly accurate estimate of
the revolutionary potential and total forces of the peasants
in Hunan. To provide an accurate picture of the peasants as
he saw their activities, Mao gave the peasants credit for 70
percent of the revolutionary work in Hunan and attributed
only 30 percent to the Hunan urban dwellers and military units.
That this was viewed as a useful estimate of the peas-
ants' revolutionary enthusaism -..ather than a piece of here-
tical writing is suggested by the fact that it was reprinted
by the Russian-dominated CCP in its official journal (38) as
well as by Moscow. (39)
Similarly, Peng Pai's reports of experiences in organiz-
ing the first peasants' association in China in early 1920's
and the first peasant Soviet in 1927 were reprinted in the
Soviet publication International Literature (1932). Moscow
did this, despite the fact that Peng spears almost exclusive-
ly of the peasants' revolutionary activity without any signif-
icant urban support. In describing Haifeng County as divided
into two ;i::t; camps--"landowners and -the peasants"--Peng speaks
of the workers not as leaders but as subsidiary allies of the
peasants: "The workers were on the side of the peasants." (40)
That is the extent of his discussion of the workers.
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^ OF T/AL USE,' ONI,Y
In October 1951, however, when t}o Chinese Communists
were laboring to build Mao Tse-tung's prestige as an eminent
theorist, the emphasis on reportorial accuracy was replaced.
`'.i~o1': now emphasis was on doctrinal maturity, on theoretical
excellence. What in March 1927, and in the years immedi-
ately following, was viewed as a good on-the-spot account
of the Hunan peasant revolts, in October 1951 was viewed as
a "brilliant" Marxist-Leninist theoretical analysis of the
Chinese revolution in general. As such, it was subjected
to the test of doctrinal rather than practical accuracy,
and as a result, the sentence slighting the "urban dwellers"
role in the Hunan revolts was deleted. (41)
A doctrinal content was supplied by insertion. Thus,
theorist Li Ta claims that, "In the Report, Comrade Mao Tse-
tung established the theoretical foundation of tha worker-
peasant alliance." (42) But in the original version of the
Report, Mao does not mention the "worker-peasant alliance."
"Another theorist, Chu Chien-nung, claims that in the Report
Mao solved the question of leadership of the peasant revolu-
tion. To prove this doctrinal point, Chu cites the follow-
ing sentence from the Report: "The poor peasants accept
most willingly the leadership of the Communist party." (43)
But this crucial sentence appears only in the 1951 version
of the Report as an insertion; it was not in the 1927 ori-
ginal. For the Comintern had designated the KMT as leader
of the national revolution, not the CCP. At the time, Mao
was working for the KMT as well as for the CCP, and his Re-
port was therefore published not only in the CCP's officTaT
organ and in Moscow, but also in the weekly publication of
the Central Executive Committee of the KMT. (44)
The Bourgeois Ally
Regarding the question of allies, Li Ta claims that in
Analysis, Mao indicated that the Chinese bourgeoisie is
different from the bourgeoisie in capitalist countries and
"came to the conclusion" that the "left-wing of the national
bourgeoisie could be friendly toward the revolution." x
asser s nat by including the "national bourgeoisie" in the
worker-led united front of peasants and petty bourgeoisie,
" ..Comrade Mao Tse-tung has further developed the Marxist-
Leninist theory of classes." "Clearly, Analysis established
the theory of a revolutionary united front led--'Ey the workers."
(45)
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4 a I~ 1 CI A L (J S.I 1i O N L L )"
Li mentions no early Communist literature on the subject
o:f the national bourgeoisie probably because his claims would
crumble were.- ho to do so, For Lenin and Stalin were explicit
in discussing the "revolutionary" section of the bourgeoisie.
Thus in his The Stages, Trends, and Prospects of the
Revolution of l90b"'enin ma lies a distinction between two
sections of the Russian bourgeoisie: "...The labor movement
flares up into a direct revolution, while the liberal bour-
geoisie has already united in a Constitutional-Democratic
party and thinks of stopping the revolution by compromising
with t:iarism. But the radical elements of the bourgeoisie
and petty bourgeoisie are inclined to enter into an alliance
with the proletariat for the continuation of the revolution..,
/tenin's emphasis? (46)
Discussing revolution in backward countries, particularly
in China, Stalin in 1925 speaks of the split of the "nation-
al bourgeoisie...into a revolutionary and an anti-revolu-
tionary wing." "Hence the task of the Communist elements in
the colonial countries is to link up with the revolutionary
elements of the bourgeoisie...." (47) When, therefore,
roughly one year later Mao says in Analysis that "some sec-
tions" of Vie "middle class" (i.e., the national bourgeoisie)
will "turn left and join the ranks of the revolution" and
the other section will become anti-revolutionary (48), he is
merely repeating Stalin's formulation.
But in order to credit Mao with originality, Li Ta cites
Chen Po-ta's statement that Mao in the 1920's "did not have
an opportunity to make ^ systematic study of Stalin's many
works on China." (See page: two,", above) The whole basis
of Chen's argument is untenable. Few Communist leaders, if
any, had the opportunity to make a "systematic" study of
Stalin's "many" works on China. The point is that they re-
ceived his directives on policy regularly and in considerable
detail through Comintern channels. These directives in-
cluded the matter of a united front with the "revolutionary"
section of the bourgeoisie--a distinction which appears fre-
quently in the writings of early Chinese Communist leaders.
In at least one decisive case, the Comintern directive
was given forcefully and orally in Moscow. At the Fourth
Congress of the Communist International, which met from 5 No-
vember to 5 December 1922, Karl Radek attacked the Chinese
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delegates for being, too "leftist" in their view of the bour-
geoisie. "You must understand, comrades, that neither the
question of socialism nox' of the Soviet republic is now the
order of the day...the immediate task is: (a) to organize
the young working class; (b) to adjust its relations with
the revolutionary bourgeoisie elements in order to organize
the struggle against European and Asiatic /apanese7 imperial-
ism." /emphasis supplied? (49) - -'
To sum up, Mao Tse-tung did not make a contribution to
the theory of historical materialism in his earliest works,
Analysis and Rep)rt.
The Rural Base Area
But Communists say that in the actual conduct of life,
in the actual direction of the party in revolution, a leader
contributes to the theory of historical materialism as well.
This is true, and it is in this area that Mao has made a
significant contribution to the theory of revolution.
Specifically, Chen Po-ta claims that Mao "...worked out
a series of complete conclusions: ...that it was possible
for the revolution to achieve victory first in the country-
side and that it was possible to establish long-term revolu-
tionary bases there." (50)
Mao and his supporters apparently believed that they had
little choice but to achieve "victory first in the country-
side." In his The Chinese Revolution and the CCP of Decem-
ber 1939, Mao says that since "powerful imperialism and its
reactionary allies in China hove occupied China's key cities
for a long time...," the relatively weak Communists "must
build the backward villages into advanced, consolidated base
areas." (51) The idea of a rural base area is a contribu-
tion to the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution.
The prerequisities for establiishing "long-term revolu-
tionary bases" in the countryside are enumerated by Mao in
November 1928. In his The Struggle in Chingkang Mountains,
Mao says that in order to survive, an "isolated base"
requires, "(1) a sound mass basis, (2) a first-rate party
organization, (3) a Red Army of adequate strength, (4) a
terrain favorable to military operations, and (5) economic
strength sufficient for self-support." (53) We can agree
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with Chen Po-ta's statement that, "To establish revolutionary
bases by armed force was the starting point of the road along
which Canr,:tidv Mao Tse-tung led the revolution to nation-wide
victory. " (54)
Guerrilla. Warfare
Chen singles out guerrilla warfare, as well as rural
bases, as an important component of Mao's theory of revolu-
tion. Chen says: "The main strategy of the revolutionary
war as expounded by Comrade Mao Tse-tung was to develop-
guerrilla warfare to the fullest possible extent and on a
:large scale and then, tinder certain conditions, after the
rf:ro?wth of our strength, to transform it into regular war-
fare,.,," (55) Chen then quotes from Mao's The Chinese
Revolution and the CPP: ",,,the protracted revoTutior nary
-rug& e con uc ted in such revolutionary bases is chiefly a
peasant guerrilla war led by the Chinese Communist party...."
Chinese claims for the originality of Mao's theory of
guerrilla warfare tactics--some of which he took from Chu
Te--are marked by considerable detail. "In this series of
lectures /-On Protracted War, 26 May to 3 June 19387, Comrade
,Rao Tse-tung...worked out his strategic concept 61 'conduct-
ing independent and isolated guerrilla warfare in mountainous
terrain' and 'prosecuting primarily guerrilla warfare coupled
with a war of movement in favorable circumstances' for the
Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army." (56) "With
regard to the problem of engaging the enemy, it was Comrade
Mao Tse-tung who always determined military strategy and
military art. Precisely coincident with the promulgation
of guerrilla warfare, he created his famous 16-word formula-
tion: 'Enemy advances, we retire. Enemy tarries, we harass.
Enemy tires, we fight. Enemy retires, we pursue.!..'. To
summarize the- 25 years of experience in guerrilla warfare,
Comrade Mao Tse-tung wrote many famous military treatises:
Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War, Strategic
? 6 ems of the Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War, etc.
In these
works, he explains the sources, nature, and theories of war
involved in strategic military thinking, the laws of war,
and even problems of military art....". (57)
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^ OF ICIAL USE JIVLY
International importance is also claimed for Mao's guer-
rilla warfare theories. Thus Kuan Meng-chueh in 1952 states
that Mao's Strategic, Probblems of China's Revolutionary War
of December^1~5 "-,.-.:Ls FiiT_ 6 trie most brilliant Marxis
works of the world Communist movement on military science."
(53) Kuan's statement carries considerable authority, as he
seems to have taken it verbatim from the 30 Years of the CCP
of July 1951., w'-rich thus far is the only o icia istory o
the CCP.
Despite their, references to Lenin and Stalin, Soviet
writers had paid Mao great tribute in discussing his treaties
on guerrilla warfare. Thus in discussing Strategic Problems
of China's Revolutionary War, M. Mitin states : is an
extremely valuable and usul military text ... Mao shows him-
self to be not only a major military figure and leader of
great dimensions, but also a military theoretician who skill-
fully and creatively applied Lenin's and Stalin's ideas in
the concrete conditions of the revolutionary war in China."
(59) I. Plyshevskiy and A. Sobolev state that, "Mao Tse-
tung's working out of strategic and tactical problems is, an
important contribution to the art of warfare." (60) This
Plyshevskiy-Sobolev statement, which was made in a review of
the second volume of the Russian edition of Mao's Selected
Works is one of the most unequivocal tributes to Mao ever
ma a by Soviet writers.
The idea of revolutionary guerrilla warfare as it was
fully developed by Mao Tse-tung appears to be another con-
tribution to the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution.
Mao's teacher in guerrilla warfare tactics was Chu Te,
whom Major Evans F. Carlson, an early on-the-spot observer
of Chinese Red Army tactics, described as "pre-eminent in
his field." (61) It is difficult to determine the extent
of Ma'o's debt to Chu on the matter of strategy and tactics.
In any case, Chu steps asides
We must not absorb foreign countries' theories
...mechanically and regard them as unchanging dogmas.
The Great Revolution, the Agrarian Revolution, and
the War of Resistance have given birth to a correct
military science...it is a military science that has
both theory and practice...the many books on warfare
written by Comrade Mao Tse-tung are representative
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works of this new ;nil! t.n,ry science ... the strategy
of the people's war is tho outstanding result of
Comrade Mao Tse-tung 's :neth:d of waging war.
/emphasis supplies,) k62)
This is Chu's tribute to Mao in April 1945.
To sum up, Mac) made at least two contributions to the
Marxist-Leniniut theory of revol?ution. Those are: the idea
of forming rural revolutionary bases which were self-sus-
taining, and the idea of expanding and systematizing guer-
rilla warfare tactics.
Conciliation of the Capitalists
Mao seems to have made a third contribution as well.
Regarding the question of the "revolutionary section" of
the national bourgeoisie (also designated as the "middle
bourgeoisie"), Mao in his earliest works merely repeated
the formulations of Stalin and of Comintern directives. An
alliance with the "middle bourgeooisie", meant an alliance
with political leaders; that is, with the "left F31T." This
was to be a united front "fro above"; a direct appea' to
the economic interests of businessmen was not envisaged.
But in his later works, Mao attempts to gain the maximum
number of allies by a direct appeal to-the economy,.; inter-
ests of businessmen in the "national" or "middle" bourgeoisie.
In effect this is a united front "fr. om below," as it included
a promise to protect their profits and was not restricted to
political leaders. Thus in his The Present Situation and
Our Tasks of December 1947, Mao ?Ztates : "All that a New
Democracy revolution aims to eliminate are feudalism and
monopoly capitalism, the landlord class and the bureaucratic-
bourgeoisie, not capitalism in general nor the petty bour-
geoisie nor the middle bourgeoisie_. The existence of the
capitalist economy of the petty bourgeoisie and the middle
bourgeoisie must. still be permitted for a long period of
time." (63)
In two respects, Mao's statement goes beyond Lenin's
policy of tolerance towards Russian capitalists during the
New Economic Policy (NEP) period, First, it envisaged the
existence of a capitalist economy for a "longi4period rather
than for a temporary interval. Second, Lenin carried out
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O4
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tie NEP after the Bolsheviks took over national power, but
a~1ao pledge o protect the economic interests of capitalist
hc_f_ore the CCP 'took power.
That this degree o,. moderation and conciliation towards
capi'~alists and capitalist economy during a revolution was
unprecedented, and troublesome for Moscow, is suggested by
the manner in which the C'Dminform journal published Mao's
The Present Situation and Our Tasks. Included among the
cue. etions wnic a the CominfoFF-e-d'il-ors made in republishing
it is Mao's statement on sustaining the "middle bourgeoisie"
and capi talism. (64)
But Mao's idea has been maintained in the CCP. In their
review of the fourth volume of Mao's Selected Works, two Chi-
nese theorists state: "Comrade Mao Tse- ung...pointed out
that, with regard to the national bourgeoisie, we should not
only win them over politically, but we must Also give its
members consideration economically...." emphasis supplied?
(65) Changes in the C~ s po .cy towards The capitalist
economy after 1949 will be discussed in a later paper.
The "Paper Tiger"
The two theorists also claim that Mao's "paper tiger"
concept, that is, the idea of "slighting the enemy strategical-
ly and taking full account of him tactically," is a "new de-
velopment of ecormous significance in the theory of Marxist-
Leninist strategy and tactics." (66) It is not that at all.
It is a platitude. Many revolutionary leaders, including
non-Communist nationalists.--e.g., Abd-el-Krim, the guerrilla
leader in Morocco--measured their cloth seven times over be-
fore acting when faced with a superior enemy force. As a
fighter in the cause of Soviet Communism, Stalin was a su-
preme master,,in showing contempt for his enemy "strategically"
while using capitica tactically." The theorists say that
"paper tigers.. considered on any particular sector or in
regard to any specific struggle...are also living tigers,
iron tigers, real tigers capable of devouring people, and
we must use caution and carefully study the art of struggle."
(67) Only a fanatic or lunatic would fail to use "caution"
when confronted with "rer,,l tigers."
The idea of "caution" has an important place in Mao's
"paper tiger" theory, but it is not frequently publicized.
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When it is mentioned, it is used to provide sufficient rea-
son for a manifest retreat. Thus in October 1958, Chou En-1.1i
used the idea to explain to the party's propaganda depart-
ment the Chinese Communist backdown from the venture in the
Taiwan Strait.
A Text .,:or Backward Countries
The Chinese Communists believe that Mao's contributions
to the theory of revolution should be applied to other back-
ward countries, When Mao's Why Can China's Red Political
Power Exist? of October 1928 was republished in the 195.
`c-diti o of'' his selected works, the Commission on the Selected
Works of Mao Tse-tung, a body of the CCP central committee,
amended one of Mao's statements. In 1928 Mao had left it
implicit that rural revolutionary bases could exist only
in the unique geographical and political environment of China.
The Commission apparently was directed to add a footnote
which made the Chinese revolutionary experience applicable
to other'backward countries. The key passage in the 1951
footnote is as follows
Thus, just as the Chinese people have done, all
or at least some of the colonial peoples in the East
can hold for an extended period big or small base
areas and revolutionary regimes, carry on a protracted
revolutionary war to encircle the cities from the coun-
tryside, and proceed gradually to take over the cities
and win nationwide victory in their respective coun-
tries. (68)
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1. History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B).
S oT rt Uourse, (vCtobor 1ZJ~~i-f , Intcarnationa Pub fishers
New Yox?k- , J 9, Chapter 4, p. 105.. ' '
2. Lenin: "On the Revolutionary Phase," Pravda, 21 February
1918, in Collected Works, Volume XX31, p. 265, Third
Russian Ed:Ltion. Sta in's emphasis in the conclusion
of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union ( ) ,, Short nurse, is semi r faas Ong tarx-
is -- enin st theory means assimilating the substance of
this theory and learning to use it in the solution of
the practical problems of the revolutionary movement
under the varying conditions of the class struggle of
the proletariat." /Tn original7 Op. cit., p. 355.
3. Actually, Analysis of the Various Clases /ic7 Among the
Chinese Peasantry an Their ttitu a towar the ev-
o ution, is Mao's f rst -nown Marxist-Len nittti.work.
T xis essay, which was published in the 1 January 1926
issue of Chung-kuo Mung-min (The Chinese Peasant), is
not discussed separately n our paper, as it has been
incorporated into the larger essay, Analysis of the
Various Classes in Chinese Society, which appeared in
ung- uo Nung-min, pub is a by the KMIT Central Ex-
ecutive Committee, Peasant Department, Canton, Number
2, 1 February 1926. The current Chinese Communist
date for Analysis is March 1926--the date of its pub-
lication in Chung-kuo Ching-nien (Chinese Youth).
4. Chang Ju-hsin: "Stalin's Great Theoretical Contributions
to the Chinese Revolution," Peking Jen-min Jih-pao, 3
April 1953.
5. Chang: ibid.
6. Chen Po-ta: "Stalin and the Chinese Revolution " Chung-
su Yu-hao (Sinn-Soviet Frie.ndship), 15 December ~1949.
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7. "Publication of Stalin's Works in China," Canton Nan-fang
J'iho, 21 December 1959.
8. Direct and regular contact with the Far Eastern Secretariat
of the Comintern was established by the CCP in spring
1921 following G. Voitinsky's arrival in China in spring
1920. According to J.Z. Shumiatsky, chief editor of the
Russian and English journal published by the Special, De-
artme_nt of the Far Eastern ;secretariat cf 'L he omi.n-
torn, the Special Department was established in Irkutsk
in 1920 annese Section was set up one year later.
The duties of the Ch inese Section were outlined by Chang
Tai-lei, later a hero of t eF Canton Commune (December
1927), as follows:
A Chinese Section of the Far Eastern Secretariat in
Irkutsk is established to attend to the problems con-
nected with relations between the CCP and the Comin-
tern, to supply information to the CCP and to the
R.S.F.S.R., as well as to pass on the directives of
the Executive Committee of the Comintern to the CCP.
The Section follows the pattern of Comintern organi-
zation by which the Communist parties of separate
countries serve as Sections of the Comintern. Like-
wise, the relations between the Central Committee of
the CCP and the Far Eastern Secretariat of the Comin-
tern must be based on the similar principle of organi-
zational contact. That is, the membership of the
Chinese Section of the Far Eastern Secretariat will
cons t oTthhelocal representative of the Central com-
mittee of the CCP in the Secretariat, and the Section
itself will be subordinated to the Secretaria.t."
(Cf. Shen Kung-po: The Communist Movement in China (1924),
edited with introduction by Martin Wilbur, o um-
bia University East Asian Institute Series No. 7,
September 1960, pp. 25-26.)
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Comintern influence was exerted with increasing effective-
ness. The Resolution of the First CCP Congress (July
1921) is a short document which rejects compromise
with the Nationalists (JUIT), but the Decisions of the
Second Congress (July .1922) attack "imperialism," drop
the non-compromise policy in order to permit Commu-
nists to join the KART, and provide the theoretical
rationale that the proletariat must help the bourg-
eoisie at this stage against "imperialism and feudui-
ism." The hand of the Comintern is unmistakable in
the Decisions and in early CCP policy documents.
9. Chen Po-ta: "Mao Tse-tung's Theory on the Chinese Revolu-
tion Is the Integration of Marxism-Leninism with the ,
Chinese Revolution." Hsueh-hsi (Study),. Peking, 1 July
1951.
10. Chang Ju-hsin: Kuan-yu Mao Tse-tung Tung-chih tsai Ti-i-
tzu Kuo-nei Ito-ming an-cheng S zh-c i ti Lieng-pien
Chu-tso On Two Works of Comrade Mao Tse-tung During
theF rst Revolutionary Civil War Period). Jen-min Chu-
pan She, Peking, September 1953, p. 6. (This pamphlet
is the published version of a lecture given by Chang
at the Marx-Lenin Academy, Peking, in June 1953).
11. Chang: ibid., pp. 7-8.
12. Engels: "Die Bewegungen von 1847" (The Movements of 1847),
in Marx/Engels: Gesamtausgabe (Collected Works), Sec-
tion I, Volume VI, Marx-Engels Verlag, G.M.B.H., Berlin,
1932, pp. 397-8. (Originally published as an article in
the Deutscher Brusseler Zeitung, 23 January 1848, Number
7, pp. 1-2.)
13. Lenin: Two Tactcs of Social Democracy in the Democratic
Revolution, June-July 1995, International Publishers,
New York, 1935, p. 41.
14. Lenin: ibid., p. 41.
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15. Lenin: ibid., p. 59. According to Trotsky, in 1905 Lenin
did not adhere to the view that the bourgeois-democratic
revolution, would "pass over" into the socialist revolu-
tion, and it was only in the spring of 1917 that he ad-
vanced this idea, re-equipped with Trotsky's theory of
"permanent revolution."
16. Lenin: Selected Works, Volume III, International Publishers,
New Yoik, noTc date, p. 258.
17. Lenin: "Democracy and Narodism in China" (15 July 1912),'
in The National I4beration Movement in the East: Lenin,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 19b7, pp.,
43-44.
18. Lenin: ibid., p. 45.
19. Lenin: ibid., p. 47.
20. Lenin: "Regenerated' China" (8 November 1912), in The
National Liberation Movement in the East: Lenin, op.
cit., P. 52. M.N. Roy, the chief Indian de a ate to
E1iie Second Congress of the Comintern, July-August 1920
opposed Lenin's view that a "temporary-alliance" with
the bourgeoisie in colonial areas should be established.
:toy insisted on complete Communist party' leadership of
revolutions in the Far East from the outset. As a com-
promise, Lenin on 26 July to-R& the Congress that "we
should speak of the national-revolutionary and not of
the 'bourgeois-democratic' movements" in the East. Thus
in the 1920's, Chinese Communists designated the KMT
as leader of the "national revolution," but many lead-
ers feared the "temporary alliance."
21. Stalin: "The Political Tasks of the University of the
Peoples of the East" (18 May 1925), in Works, Volume
VII, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954,
p. 151. Peng. Shu-??chih was one of several Chinese Com-
munist theorists who discussed proletarian leadership
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before Mao allegedly did. In his Who Are the Leaders
of the Chinese National Revolution'?-of late T_9 ng
szato: tFaz- he`l~ro o a iac -a.s stronger than the in-
dustrial bourgeoisie, as it extended to both Ch.i .ese-
owned and foreign-owned industries. The "natural lead-
er" of the revolution, therefore, was not the bourg?-
eoisie but the proletariat. (Cf. Pang Shu-chih" "Chung-.
kuo Ko-ming chih Ken-pen Wen-till /Basic Problems of the
Chinese Revolution7, in Chung-kuo Ko-?ming Wen-ti Lun
Wen?-chi /-A Collection of_Lssays on Problems of the Chi-
nese Revolution7, Hsin Ching?-nien She, Shanghai, 1927,
p. 29.) -
22. Mao Tse-tung: Hsuan-chi (Selected Works), Volume 1, Jon-
min Chu-panda, PeTcing, October 1951, p. 9.
23. Chang Ju-hsin: Op. cit., September 1953, pp. 11-12.
24. Mao Tse-tung: Selected Works, Volume I, English Edition,
Internationa u si7ers, New York, 1954, p. 17.
25. Mao Tse-tung: ibid., pp. 31-32.
26. Lenin: Selected Works, Volume 111, International Pub-
lishers, New York, no date, pp. 159, 286, Lenin dis-
played, however, no deep sympathy for the peasants and
wanted to use them only as an ally. Thus in his The At-
titude of Social Democracy Toward the Peasant Movement
of September 1905, lie says. : "We support the peasant
movement in so far as it. Is revolutionary and democratic.
We are making ready (making ready at once, immediately)
to fight it in so far as it becomes reactionary and anti-
proletarian .... At first we support to the end by all
means, including confiscation, the peasantry generally
against the landlords and then (or rather, not 'then..'
but at the same time) we support the proletariat against
the peasantry in general." (Cf. Lenin: Selected Works,
Volume 111, ibid., pp. 144-146.) .
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27. "Report of the Commission on the National and Colonial
Questions to the Second Congress of the Communist Inter-
national (26 July 1920)," in The National Liberation
Movement in the East: Lenin, op. ci ., pp. 2M7 t3 ,
28. In line with Lenin's Comintern thesis of 1920, the Mani-
festo of the CCP Adopted in July 1922 by the Second
Congress states that: "Three hundred million Chinese
peasants are the most important factors of our revolu-
tionary movement.... We believe that the Chinese
revolution will quickly succeed when the majority of
the peasants ally themselves with the workers." (Cf.
Chen Kung-po: The Communist Movement in China (1924),
op. cit., p. 12 Chang tuo- ao has said iat he
worked on the drafting of the Manifesto.) Neverthe-
loors, the CCP'S major effort in the very early 1920's
v concentrated on organizing factory workers, rail-
road'workers, seamen, and dockworkers in the cities.
29. Hua Rang: The Great Chinese Revolution of 1925-1927, Two
Volumes, Shanghai, 1931,_ Chapter 4, Sect ion IV.
30. Peng Pai: "Hai-feng Nung-min Yun-tung Pao-kao" (Report
on the Peasant Movement in Haifeng), in Chung-kuo Nung-
min (The Chinese Peasant), op. cit., Cantons ; um-
1er 1, 1 January; Number 3,-1 arch; Number 4, 1 April;
and Number 5, 1 May. (Cf. also T. C. Chang: The Peas-
ant Movement in Kwangtung, Shanghai, 1928).
31. Hunan Nung-min Yun-tung Mu-chien ti Tse-lueh (Current
Tactics for a Peasant Movement in Hunan'), Chung-Kuo
Nung-min (The Chinese Peasant), op. cit., Canon, um-
er 8, August 1926, pp. 30-40.
32. Kan Nai-kuang: "Shui Shih Kuo-min Ko-ming ti Chu-li Chun?"
(What is the Main Force of the National Revolution?),
in Chung-kuo Nung-min (The Chinese Peasant), ibid., pp.
9-10.
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33. "Theses on the .3:i cu:t~ic i .n China," adopted by the Seventh
P,Lei-um, E'xccuLL.tvo Communist: International., No-
vombc.r??Dcc;.omht 1 x;26 , nprc (Ilov, Pa,rir , 20 February 1927,
The tliusos l.imIted tl)a-l.o504iitsts to conriscating, only
the land of "reac+ icn.:ry" militarlusts, and this had the
effect of rc tric t:.ng the .fc~rco and scope of the peasant
revolution.
34. Stalin: "P_'o~+pec;i:.:s Of chc Revc.lution in China" (30 Noveni-
bar 19~t~} ; xn tic, ^its; ' -571uma i l1-7 Fo-ro gn Languages Pub-
lishing IIouse,-Tloscow, 1954, p. 385. But, unlike Tan,
Stalin said the only way to organize the poasants was
through the KMT government.
35. Shao Li-tzu: "Speech tc the Seventh Plenum, Session of 30
November 1926," in :nprecor, 30 December 1926. In his
Report, Mao speaks rcpe7teMy of "bad gentry, "evil"
aln tTords, and local "bullies." This was KNIT terminology,
as "good" gentry and "good" landlords were permitted to
retain their land.
36. Lenin: Selected Works, cop. Volume III. p. 167.
37. Lenin: ibid., pp. 144-145.
38. Iisiang-tae Chou-pao ,.&u? de Weekly) . Shanghai, Number 191,
19 arch . 27.
39. Revolyutsionnyi Vcs? ck ,f:-he Revolutionary East), published
by t:he Scienifi%: Asscc? atjon for the Study of National
and Colonial Problems, ?!;)scow, Number 2, 1927.
40. Peng Pai: "Red Ea.ifeng," :n Intcrnaticnal Literature, Mos-
cow, Numbers 2-3, 1932, p. 95.
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41. The original sentence states: "To give credit whore
it is due, if we allot ton points to the accomplish-
inents of the democratic revolution, then the achieve-
ments of the urban dwellers and the military rate only
three, while the remaining seven should go to the peas-
ants in their rural revolution." (Cf. Mao Tse-tung:
Hsuan-chi (Selected Works), Ta-chun Shu-tion, Dairen,
November 1947, p. 21.5.)
42. Li Ta: "Tu Mao Tse-tung Tung-chih tsai 1926 Dien chih
1929 Nien ti Ssu-pien Chu-tso" (Read Comrade Mao Tse-
tung's Four, Works Written Between 1926 and 1929), in
Hsueh-hsi "Mao Tse-tung Hsuan-chi" Ti I Chuan (Read
the "Selected I ors of Mao Tse-tung," o-I, Hsin-
chien She Tsa-chih She, Peking, 5 September 1952, p.
37. (Originally in Peking Jen-min Jih-pao, 30 August
1951)
43. Chu Chien-nung: "Tu Hunan Nung-min Yun-tung Kao-cha
Pao-kao" (Read Report o an nvest gation Into the Peas-
ant Movement in Hunan , in i.bi ., 5 September ) pp.
44. Chinese Correspondence, Number 8, 15 May 1927.
45. Li Ta: op. cit., 5 September 1952, p. 35.
46. Lenin: Selected Works, op, cit., Volume III, p. 134.
47. Stalin: "Results of the Work of the 14th Conference of
the R.C.P. (B.) - The Immediate Tasks of the Com_unist
Elements in the Colonial and Dependent Countries" (9
May 1925), in Works, Volume VII, op. cit., Moscow,
1954, pp. 108-109.
48. Mao Tse-tung: Selected Works, op. cit., Volume I, English
Edition, pp. 14-15.
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49. The Fourt
13.
h Congress of the Communist International., London,
50. Chen Po-ta. op. cit., Peking, 1 July 1951.
51. Mao Tse-tung: Selected Works, op. cit., Volume III,
English Edition, p. 80.
52. "Isolated base" or "out-off base" is a more literal trans-
lation of the Chinese than the English-language rendition,
"independent regime."
53. Mao Tse-tung: Selected Works, op. cit., Volume I, English
Edition, p. 71.
54. Chen Po-ta: op. cit., Peking,1 July 1951.
55. Chen Po-ta: ibid.
56. Kuo Hua-jo: ,On the Occasion of the 15th Anniversary of
the Publication of On Protracted War," Peking Jen-min
Jih-pao, 3 June 195 .
57. Mo Wen-hua: Peking Jen-min Jih-?pao, 23 February 1953. Mo
concludes by stating that "The military science of Com-
rade Mao Tse-tung is the military science of Marxism-
Leninism sinified."
58. Kuan Meng.-chueh : Read "Strategic Problems of China's
Revolutionary War.' n Stu y The -Selected Works of Mao
Tse-tung, VTo u I.' Hsin Chien-she Chu-pan She. egg
anuary 195A,p-. 144
59. M. Mitin: "First Volume of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-
tung," Bolshevik, Number 17, September 1952, p. 67.
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O. I. Plyshevskiy and A. Sobolev: Pravda, 13 June 1953.
61 . Major Evans F. Carlson: "The Chinese Army: Its Organiza-
tion and Military Efficiency," in Institute of Pacific
Relations, Volume 7, Section 3, 6 October 1909, p. 2
62. -Chu Te: Military Report to the 7th Congress, CCP, given
25 April. , republished by Foreign Languages Press
Peking, 1952, pp. 63-64. According to the Japanese
Foreign Office Information Department's 7th report--
The History of the CCP: 19374-.Tokyo, 1927, Chu Te wrote
Promoting Anti-Japanese Warfare (15 July 1937) and Pang
T'e- ua wrote On Guerrilla--War-fare (summer 1937). Early
Chinese Communist sources indicate that Chu also wrote
On Guerrilla Warfare (1938), On Anti-Japanese Guerrilla
Warfare (1938), .l xperiences and Lessons gained in the
Past Six Months of War of existence by the 8th Route
Army (1938), and The Problem of Striving for A Qum
Dee sion Victory in the Protracted War of Resistances
Current Chinese Communist publications m
no mention of these works, suggesting that Chu Te's
light has been concealed so that mao's can shine
brighter.
63. Mao Tse-tung: Mu-chien Hsing-shih ho Wo-men ti Jen-wu
(The Present Situation and Our Tasks), Chieh-fang Seh,
Shanghai, June 1948, 1st Edition, p. 28.
64. "Mao Tse-tung's Report to the Central Committee of the
CCP," For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy!
15 January 048, p.
65. Teng Li-chun and Wu Chiang: "Dialectics is the Algebra
of Revolution -- Read the Selected Works of Mao Tse-
tung, Volume IV," in Hung Chi (Red Flag), Peking Joint
Numbers 20-21, 1 November 1960, p. 28.
66. Tong Li-chun and Wu Chiang: ibid., p. 25.
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67. Tong Li-chun and IN Chian p. 2 6.
68. Mao Tse-tung: Selected Works, op. cit., Volume I,
English Edition, p.-: UTfIoo?tno 6 77
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