Chapter 33 Mao led the peasant’s movement 1926

Journalist: “You considered the peasant movement to be of utmost importance. How did you approach it?”

Mao: “From January 1st to 9th, 1926, the 2nd Congress of the Kuomintang was held in Guangzhou, and I delivered a propaganda report at the congress. Entrusted by the Presidium, I made amendments to the ‘Resolution on the Peasant Movement.’ During the congress, I was reelected as an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee and appointed as a member of the Kuomintang Central Committee for the Peasant Movement. In February, I was appointed as the director of the Peasant Movement Training Institute, organized by the Kuomintang Central Committee for Peasants, and took charge of the 6th training class. The training institute was established in 1924 with Soviet funding. It was at this point that I truly started to engage in the peasant movement. Under my leadership, the training institute trained agitators for the countryside, organized peasant associations, and mobilized the poor to oppose the rich. With the occupation of Hunan by the Kuomintang’s army, the peasant movement in Hunan gained momentum after July.

From May 15th to 22nd, 1926, the Second Plenary Session of the Second Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang was held. They passed Chiang Kai-shek’s proposed ‘Party Affairs Consolidation Plan, which forced Communist Party members serving as ministers within the Kuomintang to resign one after another. I also resigned as acting Minister of Propaganda and fully devoted myself to the Rural Reconstruction Movement. While lecturing to students at the Rural Reconstruction Institute, I stated that the reason for the failure from the Xinhai Revolution to the May 30th Movement was the complete lack of support and assistance from the 320 million peasants. I emphasized repeatedly that “the Chinese National Revolution is a peasant revolution” and emphasized that if the national revolution failed to solve the peasant problem, then it would be impossible to solve the problems of various classes. I led students twice to Shaoguan and Haifeng to participate in practical work and investigate local peasant movements. In a series of meetings within the Kuomintang and various departments, almost every meeting included discussions on peasants, peasant movements, and land issues.

In November 1926, I assumed the position of Secretary of the Central Committee for the Communist Party’s Peasant Movement Commission. In 1927, I, along with Deng Yanda and others, established and presided over a branch of the Kuomintang’s Central Peasant Movement Training Institute in Wuhan.”