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

486 MAO TSE-TUNG
I wanted to know how this change in the land policy of the Communist
Party had been decided at the time.
“This is a characteristic example of the democratic ways in which
our Party devises policies,” Mao Tse-tung said. “This fundamental
change from land confiscation to a general reduction of land rents
and the guarantee for their payment to the landlords was first suggested
by comrades in lower Party organizations. Our Central Committee
took up their suggestion, which was clearly based on the
wishes of the masses. We studied and formulated these demands
and put them into effect as general policy.
“If the whole of China becomes a genuine democracy on the basis
of co-operation between all political parties, it will be possible
FROM MARX
TO MAO
to practice our rent-reduction policy on a nation-wide scale. This
⋆
would be a great reform indeed, although it would still be inferior
to Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s idea of ownership of the land by those who till
it, which will have to be the final solution of the land problem. But
it is conceivable that even the gradual transfer to the tillers of all
the land now under feudal exploitation may be brought about peacefully
all over China. If a genuinely democratic system of government
is introduced everywhere.
“The way of bringing about such a gradual transfer of all land to
the tillers would be to encourage the investment of the landlords’
capital in industrial enterprises NOT and FOR to devise other measures of economic
and fiscal policy that would be beneficial to the landlords,
the tenants, and the development of Chinese economy as a whole.
“But such a solution COMMERCIAL
depends upon genuine internal peace and
genuine democracy in China. The possible need in the future for
outright confiscation and distribution of land to the tenants can therefore
not be ruled out entirely. For in the postwar period there may
again be civil war DISTRIBUTION
if the Kuomintang insists on attacking us.
“Yet”, Mao Tse-tung said with emphasis, “no matter whether we
shall have internal peace or civil war, we prefer not to resume land
confiscation but to continue our present policy of reduction of rents
and guarantee of rent payment to the landlords; because that would
reduce the obstacles to progress and reform in general.
“I want to remind you,” Mao Tse-tung said, “that in 1930 the
Kuomintang government in Nanking issued an agrarian law restricting
land rents to 37.5 per cent of the tenant’s main crops, while no
rent was to be paid from secondary crops. But the Kuomintang has
proved unable and unwilling to carry it out in practice. The law