K. This is the 1st working draft of vol. VI. It still ... - From Marx to Mao

ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE ANTI-JAPANESE WAR
by 400,000 tan or 200,000 tan, in reality contained much subjectivism.
Many peasants were not interested or influenced by them.
From this we may conclude that in the future we must carry out deep,
factual investigations, and solve problems in terms of concrete times,
places, and conditions.
(2) As yet the peasants in a large number of areas still pay heavy
rents and heavy interest rates, and the policy of reducing these has
not been thoroughly implemented. On the one hand peasants must
bear the burden of paying rent and interest to the landlords, and on
the other they must pay grain tax and money tax to the government.
They get too little for themselves, which dampens their enthusiasm
to produce. Thus there is no possibility of increasing production.
FROM MARX
TO MAO
From this we may conclude that we must conscientiously implement
⋆
the decrees to reduce rent and interest rates.
(3) As a result of the increase in Braid tax, and the newly levied
hay tax, sheep tax, and salt-transport requirement, the peasants’ enthusiasm
for production has diminished. In the two years 1941 and
1942 the peasants paid a large amount of grain tax, hay tax and salt
tax, and during these years they expanded the area of ploughed land
by only 600, 000 mou, merely 60 per cent of the increase in 1939.
Livestock did not increase in 1941, and sheep even declined (of
course epidemics had some effect). Immigration also dropped. In
1942 only 4,843, households NOT came. FOR Moreover, 3,527 old households
moved out, the reason mainly being that they feared further burdens.
Another reason was that the amount of grain tax collected
increased progressively COMMERCIAL
according to the amount harvested and not
according to the area of land worked. This method, although rational
in terms of sharing the burden equally, hindered the growth of
investment in agriculture. It lowered the peasants’ enthusiasm to
invest in the land DISTRIBUTION
because for the same land a good harvest meant
paying out a lot and a poor harvest meant paying out little or even
nothing. If taxation was based on the area of land worked, this point
could be corrected. The enthusiasm of the middle and rich peasants
could be raised, and there would be no detriment to the poor peasants.
From this we may conclude that there must be limits to the
grain tax and hay tax, and at the same time we must improve the
methods of taxation so as to promote agricultural production.
(4) Policies should be thoroughly implemented. For example,
we stipulated that for three years we would not take grain tax from
new immigrants or from those planting cotton, but in fact we have
303