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
mou. This example proved that there is much work in agriculture
that ran and should be done by the local Party committees and the
local government. Moreover, so long as they grasp the key points
and find a method, then when they act they can be effective. From
this we may conclude that cadres must be active to overcome difficulties,
they must unite with the masses, and according to the needs
of the masses create vigorous methods to solve their problems. They
definitely cannot be passive and bureaucratic.
In order to give our comrades a clear-cut standpoint on this extremely
important question of uniting closely with the masses and
conscientiously solving their difficulties, I here specially reproduce
for reference the reports of the comrades of Yanan county on how
FROM MARX
TO MAO
they handled the problem of opening up unused land, how they
⋆
handled the problem of refugees, and how they handled the problem
of loafers.
What follows is the original report.
HOW WAS YANAN COUNTY’S PLAN TO OPEN UP
80,000 MOU OF UNUSED LAND IN 1942 COMPLETED?
NOT FOR
COMMERCIAL
(1) We relied on the labour power of immigrant refugees to open
up uncultivated land.
There were 25,428 refugees in the period of 1940 to 1942. On the
basis of five of them equalling one labour power, there were 5,086
labour powers. Each labour power can open up 10 mou of new land
in one year, giving a total of 50,860 mou. (Ten mou is the average
figure for the land opened up by refugees in the past three years. In
1942 the land opened up by each labour power was more than this.)
(2) We relied DISTRIBUTION
on the labour power of original households and
animals to open up unused land, totaling 29,399 mou.
The original households had 10,616 labour powers. The work could
be done with each labour power opening up less than 3 mou.
(3) However, the organization of labour power is a major task.
This year we adopted methods of collective labour, such as contractlabour
teams and exchange-labour teams. We also organized women
and loafers to take part in production.
Altogether we organized 487 contract-labour teams. We also
drew 4,939 good labour powers into collective labour (exchangelabour
teams). This was almost one-third of the total number of
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