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

THE BITTER SUFFERINGS OF THE PEASANTS
IN KIANGSU AND CHEKIANG,
AND THEIR MOVEMENT OF RESISTANCE*
November @%, !(@^
FROM MARX
TO MAO
If one takes the boat from Wuhsi, the first place at which one
⋆
arrives is the market town of Kushan. It is situated between the
three hsien of Chiangyin, Shangshu, and Wuhsi. In these three hsien
there are many big landlords who oppress the farmers very severely.
Last autumn, a certain Kushan student who had studied in Japan, by
the name of Chow Shui-ping, returned to this village. (Chou had
first graduated from Wuhsi provincial Teachers’ College). He could
not bear the sight (of such oppression), and encouraged the tenant
farmers to organize into a body called the “Tenant Farmers’ Co-op-
NOT FOR
COMMERCIAL
erative Self-Help Society”. Chou moved from village to village
speaking with tears in his eyes of the sufferings of the peasants. A
large number of Kushan peasants followed him, and those in the
neighbouring areas of Chiangyin, Shangshu, and Wuhsi hsien were
all inflamed. They rose like clouds and opposed the rich but heartless
big landlords, and with one voice demanded the reduction of
rent. But before the peasants had completely united themselves, the
DISTRIBUTION
bad landlords had already united themselves and the gentry and land-
lords of the three hsien — Chiangyin, Shangshu, and Wuhsi — acted
simultaneously. Letters and telegrams fell like snowflakes on Sun
Chuan-fang; Sun Chuan-fang of course obeyed the order of the landlords.
Last November, he dissolved the “Tenant Farmers’ Co-operative
Self-Help Society” and arrested Chou Shui-ping, who was
executed in January of this year. It seemed that the movement for
rent reduction had been suppressed for a time. But when Chou Shui-
* Extracted from an article of the same title published in Hsiang-tao, No. 179,
November 25, 1926.
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