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
will continue by constructing 4,000 mou of irrigated land in
Yangquiaopan. However since there were originally only sixty
households there and in 1942 only about forty new households came
in, the total of a hundred or sixty households still leaves a problem
of labour power. They have therefore decided to appeal for a
hundred households to come in 1943. At present they have already
begun to dig out cave houses and to prepare dwellings. “Settling a
hundred immigrant households is a heavy task. Since most of them
came from Hengshan and many will be refugees, they will need a
lot of credit if we are to succeed. If the immigrants arrive, together
with the labour power already in the area there will be no
difficulty in constructing, 4,000 mou in 1943.” As well as this the
FROM MARX
TO MAO
comrades of Jingbian have also built a kind of “water-logged land”
⋆
[Shuimandi]. Water-logged lands are “large pieces of flat land surrounded
on three sides by high mountains and on the fourth side
by a deep gully [tian qou]. Some are 2,000 to 3,000 mou and some
are 200 to 300 mou. The soil of such land is very good but on top
of it is piled sand and gravel which obstructs the seedlings and
spoils the quality of the soil”. The method of constructing waterlogged
land is “to build a solid dyke along the side of the gully on
top of which sand willows [shaliu] and pea-trees [ningtiozi] (in
winter this supplies food for the sheep) are planted. This dyke
prevents the water that NOT runs off the FOR mountains during the course of
the year from flowing away through the gully. It all lies on the
land. The mud is very thick. It is extremely fertile and has a high
water-content. It COMMERCIAL
is very good for planting crops. Furthermore,
each year the area expands and the mountain gullies become flat
land. Thus the productive area is increased”. The yield of this
water-logged land is more than double that of dry land. “Five mou
of dry land yields DISTRIBUTION
1 tan of grain but 5 mou of water-logged land
can yield 2 or 3 tan.” The comrades of Jingbian only discovered
how to build this water-logged land during the mobilization for
the spring ploughing in 1942. Therefore it has as yet only been
tried out in two places totaling 1,000 mou. They are preparing to
construct such lands in a good many places in 1943 and the total
area will be over 13,000 mou. They say: “In the entire county from
50,000 to 60,000 mou of water-logged land can be built”. I have
given the example of Jingbian in detail to prove that the case for
building water conservancy works is far from hopeless. Conditions
for doing so exist in several places. In particular the consci-
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