MAO TSE-TUNG
(January 23, 1934)
OUR ECONOMIC POLICY
(Report to the Second National Congress of Workers' and Peasants' Representatives - Juichin, Kiangsi Province in January 1934.)
Only the Kuomintang warlords who have brought the areas under their own rule
to the brink of bankruptcy have the utter shamelessness to spread the
rumour, day in day out, that the Red areas are in a state of total collapse.
The imperialists and the Kuomintang are bent on wrecking the Red areas, the
work of economic construction now in progress there, and the welfare of the
millions of workers and peasants who have achieved liberation. For this
purpose, they have pursued a ruthless policy of economic blockade, in
addition to organizing forces for military campaigns of "encirclement and
suppression". But, leading the broad masses and the Red Army, we have not
only smashed one enemy "encirclement and suppression" campaign after
another, but have also been doing all the essential work of economic
construction within our power in order to defeat this vicious economic
blockade. In this respect, too, we have scored one success after another.
The principle governing our economic policy is to proceed with all the
essential work of economic construction within our power and concentrate our
economic resources on the war effort, and at the same time to improve the
life of the people as much as possible, consolidate the worker-peasant
alliance in the economic field, ensure proletarian leadership of the
peasantry, and strive to secure leadership by the state sector of the
economy over the private sector, thus creating the prerequisites for our
future advance to socialism.
The focus of our economic construction is to increase agricultural and
industrial production, expand our trade with the outside, and develop the
co-operatives.
Agriculture in the Red areas is obviously making progress. As compared with
1932, the 1933 agricultural output was 15 per cent higher in southern
Kiangsi and western Fukien and 20 per cent higher in the
Fukien-Chekiang-Kiangsi border area. The Szechuan-Shensi border area has had
a good harvest. After a Red area is established, farm output often declines
in the first year or two. [1] But it picks up again as the peasant masses
work with greater enthusiasm after the land is redistributed and ownership
is settled, and after we have given encouragement to production. Today in
some places farm output has reached and even exceeded the pre-revolution
level. In others, not only has land that lay waste during the revolutionary
uprisings been reclaimed, but new land has been brought under cultivation.
In many places mutual-aid groups and ploughing teams [2] have been organized
to adjust the use of labour power in the villages, and co-operatives have
been organized to overcome the shortage of draught oxen. Moreover, the women
are taking part in production in great numbers. None of this could have
happened in the Kuomintang days. With the land in the hands of the
landlords, the peasants then were neither willing to improve it nor did they
possess the means to do so. Only since we have distributed the land to the
peasants and encouraged and rewarded production has their labour enthusiasm
blossomed forth and great success in production been achieved. It should be
pointed out that in the present conditions agriculture occupies first place
in our economic construction; it is by agriculture that we solve both the
most important problem of food, and the problem of raw materials such as
cotton, hemp, sugar-cane and bamboo, which are needed for the making of
clothes, sugar, paper and other necessities. The care of forests and the
increase of livestock are also an important part of agriculture. Within the
framework of small-scale peasant economy it is permissible and indeed
necessary to draw up suitable plans for the output of certain important
agricultural products and to mobilize the peasants to strive for their
fulfilment. We should pay closer attention and devote greater efforts to
this. We must actively lead the peasants in solving such difficult and
essential problems in production as labour power, draught oxen, fertilizer,
seed and irrigation. In this connection our fundamental task is to adjust
the use of labour power in an organized way and to encourage women to do
farm work. The necessary measures to solve the problem of labour power are
organizing mutual-aid groups and ploughing teams and mobilizing and
encouraging the whole rural population to help during the busy spring and
summer ploughing seasons. Another big problem is that quite a large
proportion (about 25 per cent) of the peasants are short of draught oxen. We
must attend to organizing draught oxen co-operatives, encouraging the
peasants without oxen to buy them for their common use through voluntary
subscription to shares. Irrigation, which is the lifeblood of agriculture,
also merits close attention. Of course, we cannot as yet bring up the
question of state or collective farming, but it is urgently necessary to set
up small experimental farms, agricultural research schools and exhibitions
of farm produce in various places to stimulate the development of
agriculture.
The enemy blockade has made it difficult for us to market goods outside our
areas. There has been a decline in production in many handicraft industries
in the Red areas, notably tobacco-curing and paper-making. But the
difficulties of sending goods out are not entirely insurmountable. We have
an extensive market of our own because of the mass demand in our areas. We
should systematically restore and develop handicrafts and also certain
industries, firstly to supply our own needs and secondly for trade with the
outside. In the last two years, and especially since the first half of 1933,
many handicrafts and a few industries have begun to look up because of the
attention we have begun to devote to them and the gradual development of
producers' co-operatives by the people. The most significant fields are
tobacco, paper, wolfram, camphor, farm implements and fertilizers (such as
lime). Moreover, in our present circumstances we should not neglect the
manufacture of our own cotton cloth, medicines and sugar. In the
Fukien-Chekiang-Kiangsi border area, some industries have been set up which
were previously non-existent, such as paper-making, cloth-making and
sugar-refining, and they are doing well. To relieve the shortage of salt,
people have begun to extract it from nitre. It requires proper planning to
keep industry going. With a scattered handicraft industry, detailed and
comprehensive planning is of course impossible. But fairly detailed
production plans are absolutely essential for certain important enterprises,
and first and foremost for state and co-operative enterprises. Every one of
our state and co-operative industrial enterprises must pay attention from
the very beginning to making accurate estimates of raw material output and
marketing prospects in both the enemy areas and our own.
At the present time, it is particularly necessary for us to organize
private external trading according to plan and for the state to handle
certain essential commodities directly, for instance, the import of salt and
cotton cloth, the export of grain and wolfram, and the adjustment of grain
supply within our own areas. Such work was first undertaken in the
Fukien-Chekiang-Kiangsi border area and was started in the Central Area in
the spring of 1933. With the establishment of the Bureau of External Trade
and other agencies, initial successes have been achieved in this connection.
Our economy is made up of three sectors, state enterprise, cooperative
enterprise and private enterprise.
At present, state enterprise is limited to what is possible and essential.
State-operated industry and commerce have begun to grow and they have
boundless prospects.
As regards the private sector of the economy, we shall not hamper it,
indeed we shall promote and encourage it, so long as it does not transgress
the legal limits set by our government. For the development of private
enterprise is essential to the interests of the state and the people at the
present stage. Needless to say, private enterprise is now preponderant and
will inevitably continue to occupy a dominant position for a considerable
time. Today, private undertakings in the Red areas are small in scale.
Co-operative enterprise is growing rapidly. There are altogether 1,423
co-operatives of various kinds, with a total capital of over 300,000 yuan,
according to the September 1933 figures for seventeen counties in Kiangsi
and Fukien. Consumers' co-operatives and grain co-operatives head the list,
with producers' co-operatives coming next. Credit co-operatives have just
started functioning. When the co-operative and the state enterprises become
co-ordinated and grow over a long period of time, they will become a
tremendous force in our economy and will gradually prevail and assume
leadership over the private sector. Therefore, the greatest possible
development of state enterprise and the extensive development of
co-operative enterprise must go hand in hand with encouraging the
development of private enterprise.
With the support of the ...
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