ABSTRACT
In October of the 15th year of the Republic, the Joint Session of the Central Committee of our party and of the various provincial party organs passed several resolutions on improving the conditions of the peasants. In the five months since then, the struggle in the countryside between the oppressed peasants and their oppressors (such as landlords, the gentry, local bullies, and corrupt officials) has developed even more widely. But everywhere the resolutions of the Joint Session have remained largely a dead letter. Although peasant associations have tried to implement such resolutions, they have often encountered fierce resistance or even retaliation from those who control political power in the countryside. Since the government and party organizations are occupied with military operations, they have been unable to protect the organizations of peasants, let alone provide active support to enable peasants to establish their autonomous governments and use the leverage of the power of the autonomous governments to defeat their enemies. As a result of the victory of the Northern Expedition, many [provinces] have been placed under the rule of the national government; four million peasants have joined peasant associations and are struggling hard for their own liberation. At the same time, the enemies of the peasantry are doing their utmost to suppress the development of the peasant movement and to obstruct the realization of our party’s resolutions. These enemies of the peasantry, the so-called power holders in the countryside, are also the enemies of the national revolution. All these forces left over from the feudal system must be eliminated in order for the national revolution to succeed. These remnant feudal forces are the root cause of the miseries of the peasantry. They are also the basis for the existence of 468the warlords and of imperialism in economically backward China. Therefore, our party and the national government must do their best to protect and develop the peasant organizations and see that the decisions of the Joint Session are carried out. 2 These resolutions represent the first step by our party toward the liberation of the Chinese peasants. If our party is unable to take such a step, the national revolution will face great dangers, and it will certainly lose the support of the peasantry, that is, the support of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. If our party must work hard to develop the peasant movement, it is not only for the sake of enabling the majority of peasants to intensify their struggle against the warlords and imperialists. In representing the interests of the great majority of the peasants, our party must also expand the peasant movement at all times in order to help the oppressed peasants reach their goal of seeking their own liberation, thanks to the power of their own organizations and struggle. In order for our party to ensure the liberation of the peasantry, our party must develop the organizations of the peasants so that they may use their own strength to struggle against all the oppressive forces under any political conditions. Only this will make the victory of the national revolution the victory of the peasantry. Therefore, in order to establish a unified democratic polity, to ensure that the Three People’s Principles truly begin to be put into practice, and to make the peasants understand that our party is their friend and protector, our party should adopt the following resolution during the current plenum of the Central Executive Committee.
