MAO ZEDONG’S “REPORT ON AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PEASANT MOVEMENT IN HUNAN, MARCH 1927”

In 1927, as the Northern Expedition was conquering large parts of China for the Guomindang Party, Mao Zedong, a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and director of the Guomindang’s Peasant Movement Training Institute, spent time in Hunan province observing the peasant movement there. His report stressed the accomplishments the peasant movement had already made and the vast potential yet to be tapped: “To march at their head and lead them? To follow in the rear, gesticulating at them and criticizing them? To face them as opponents? Every Chinese is free to choose among the three.”

There was no question where Mao stood. The CCP, its policy virtually dictated from Moscow by Josif Stalin to suit his political needs in the struggle with Leon Trotsky, failed to take full advantage of possibilities. Only after the moment had passed did Stalin give orders to stir up rebellion in rural areas. Mao tried, but the “Autumn Harvest Uprising” of 1927 had no chance of success.

After the failure of the Autumn Harvest Uprising, Mao led survivors first to the Jinggan Mountains on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi and then about a year later to another mountainous area, this between Jiangxi and Fujian provinces. There Mao established the Jiangxi Soviet, which survived until 1934, when Guomindang attacks forced Mao and his followers to go on the Long March. In the Jiangxi Soviet Mao learned a great deal more about working with the peasantry. In particular, he experimented with land reform policies, attempting to find the degree of rigor that would provide justice for the poor peasants and yet not alienate potential supporters among the peasants who were better off. In 1930 he studied one county in Jiangxi, Xunwu, very carefully and learned a great deal about how peasant society worked. Among other things, Mao became more convinced than ever of the importance of improving the lot of women in the countryside. With the help of Zhu De, a former soldier of fortune and opium addict, Mao developed the Red Army as a guerrilla force. The CCP constantly wanted Mao to send troops to other areas to foster uprisings. Mao opposed this, but could not oppose direct orders to attack a nearby city as part of an ambitious campaign in 1930. The campaign ended in defeat, and Mao and Zhu withdrew their forces without permission rather than see them destroyed. Despite Mao’s success with the Jiangxi Soviet, the CCP leadership was slow to abandon its emphasis on the proletariat and urban insurrection. Only after the Long March and the establishment of a new soviet in Yan’an, Shaanxi province, did Mao begin to win converts to his unorthodox ideas about a peasant base for a Marxist revolution.

4. Read Mao’s report on Xunwu County in Jiangxi and compare it with his earlier report on Hunan.
5. Assess the debates about policy within the Chinese Communist Party between the split with the Guomindang in 1927 and the beginnings of the Long March in 1934. To what extent was the CCP able to reconcile Marxist doctrines with Chinese political and social realities?
6. Trace Mao’s activities between his report on the peasant movement in Hunan in 1927 and the beginnings of the Long March in 1934. How important was he in the hierarchy of the CCP?

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The May 4th Movement in China, 1919” (#12), “The Northern Expedition in China, 1926–1928” (#16), and “Mao Zedong and the Long March, 1934–1935” (#25). Search under Chen Duxiu, Li Lisan, “returned students,” Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and Gao Gang.

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Mao Zedong. Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings: 1912–1949. Vol. 2, National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920– June 1927. Edited by Stuart Schram and Nancy Jane Hodes. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995. Vol. 3, From the Jinggangshan to the Establishment of the Jiangxi Soviet, July 1927–December 1930. Edited by Stuart Schram. 1995. Vol. 4, The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Soviet Republic, 1931–1934. Edited by Stuart Schram. 1997. Highly useful background material.

———. Report from Xunwu. Translated and edited by Roger R. Thompson. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. A much more detailed and elaborate report than the 1927 report. Very useful for measuring the distance Mao had come since 1927.

Hofheinz, Roy. The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922–1928. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. An important study of the possibilities of peasant unrest in the 1920s.

Hsiao Tso-liang. Power Relations Within the Chinese Communist Movement, 1930–1934: A Study of Documents. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1961. A useful but advanced book.

Kim, Ilpyong. The Politics of Chinese Communism: Kiangsi under the Soviets. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. A good discussion of the overall operation of the Kiangsi (Jiangxi) Soviet.

McDonald, Angus. The Urban Origins of Rural Revolution: Elites and the Masses in Hunan Province, China, 1911–1927. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Presents an important aspect of peasant unrest in the 1920s.

Schram, Stuart. Mao Tse-tung. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966. A good introduction to Mao’s life.

Schwartz, Benjamin. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958. One of the best books available on this topic.

Smedley, Agnes. The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1956. An older but still useful biography.