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

CONCLUSIONS ON THE LAND INVESTIGATION CAMPAIGN
8. ON THE ART OF LEADERSHIP IN
THE LAND INVESTIGATION STRUGGLE
If we understand the task and policy and yet if we do not possess
the Bolshevik art of leading the mass struggle we still cannot
commence the Land Investigation Campaign. In the opening of this
essay mention has been made of very many good examples of leading
the struggle in the places like Jentien District and others, but in
many others places many mistakes were committed over this question.
In some places we did now know how to use various methods
to spur the struggle in the large backward villages where the landlords
and rich peasants were concentrated. That is to say, if such a
FROM MARX
TO MAO
large village existed, we should first of all capture the most notori-
⋆
ously bad haoshen and landlords whom the masses called “big tigers.”
Only this way can we initiate the struggle in the locality.
Nevertheless our comrades did not do this way. As regards the
best method to spur the mass struggle through the utilization of
the distribution of the confiscated items, they did not know how to
use it in many places. In Watzu hsiang of Taching District of
Juichin they distributed things, worst of all, only to land investigation
cadres and poor peasants corps members while issuing none
to others. The reason was that if one was not active he does not
deserve it. In some places NOT the distribution FOR of confiscated things
was very slow. In some extreme cases even when a month or so
has passed after confiscation, distribution to the masses was not
done. The distribution COMMERCIAL
of the confiscated land was even more
slower. Comrades in quite a few places did not know how to mobilize
various departments of the Soviets and mass organizations;
nor did they know how to mobilize the available Party and Youth
League members DISTRIBUTION
to play the nucleus leadership role in the mass
organizations, villages and residences. Unable to push forward the
work they said there had been no way out here at the outset. In
some places with the mass struggle for class examination already
in full swing, many people came to report on the landlords and
rich peasants and asked for examination and confiscation. At the
time comrades could not immediately seize on the popular enthusiasm
to lead the masses to further the struggle so as to carry the
work of class examination into the villages. In some places, when
the popular zeal in struggle, after a round of investigation, could
not continue to surge upward and reached the state of stalemate,
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