MAO TSE-TUNG
(January 27, 1934)
BE CONCERNED WITH THE WELL-BEING OF THE MASSES, PAY ATTENTION TO METHODS OF WORK
(Part of concluding speech to the Second National Congress of Workers' and Peasants' Representatives - Juichin, Kiangsi Province)
There are two questions which comrades have failed to stress during the
discussion and which, I feel, should be dealt with.
The first concerns the well-being of the masses.
Our central task at present is to mobilize the broad masses to take part in
the revolutionary war, overthrow imperialism and the Kuomintang by means of
such war, spread the revolution throughout the country, and drive
imperialism out of China Anyone who does not attach enough importance to
this central task is not a good revolutionary cadre. If our comrades really
comprehend this task and understand that the revolution must at all costs be
spread throughout the country, then they should in no way neglect or
underestimate the question of the immediate interests, the well-being, of
the broad masses. For the revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can
be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them.
If we only mobilize the people to carry on the war and do nothing else, can
we succeed in defeating the enemy? Of course not. If we want to win, we must
do a great deal more. We must lead the peasants' struggle for land and
distribute the land to them, heighten their labour enthusiasm and increase
agricultural production, safeguard the interests of the workers, establish
co-operatives, develop trade with outside areas, and solve the problems
facing the masses- food, shelter and clothing, fuel, rice, cooking oil and
salt, sickness and hygiene, and marriage. In shots, all the practical
problems in the masses' everyday life should claim our attention. If we
attend to these problems, solve them and satisfy the needs of the masses, we
shall really become organizers of the well-being of the masses, and they
will truly rally round us and give us their warm support. Comrades, will we
then be able to arouse them to take part in the revolutionary war? Yes,
indeed we will.
Here is the kind of thing we have found among some of our cadres. They talk
only about expanding the Red Army, enlarging the transport corps, collecting
the land tax and selling bonds; as for other matters, they neither discuss
nor attend to them, and even ignore them altogether. For instance, there was
a time when the Tingchow Municipal Government concerned itself only with the
expansion of the Red Army and with mobilization for the transport corps and
paid not the slightest attention to the well-being of the masses. The
problems facing the people of Tingchow city were that they had no firewood,
no salt was on sale because the capitalists were hoarding it, some people
had no houses to live in, and rice was both scarce and dear. These were
practical problems for the masses of the people of Tingchow and they eagerly
looked to us for help in solving them. But the Tingchow Municipal Government
did not discuss any of these matters. That is why when the new workers' and
peasants' representative council was elected in the city, a hundred or more
representatives were unwilling to attend after the first few council
meetings had discussed only the expansion of the Red Army and mobilization
for the transport corps, entirely ignoring the well-being of the masses, so
that the council was unable to go on meeting. The result was that very
little was achieved in regard to the expansion of the Red Army and
mobilization for the transport corps. That was one kind of situation.
Comrades! You have probably read the pamphlets given you about two model
townships. There the situation is entirely different. What a great number of
people have joined the Red Army from Changkang Township in Kiangsi [1] and
Tsaihsi Township in Fukien! [2] In Changkang 80 per cent of the young men
and women have joined the Red Army, and in Tsaihsi the figure is 88 per
cent. There has been a big sale of bonds, too, and 4,500 yuan worth have
been sold in Changkang which has a population of 1,500. Much has also been
done in other fields. What accounts for this? A few examples will make the
point dear. In Changkang when fire broke out in a poor peasant's house
destroying one and a half rooms, the township government appealed to the
masses to contribute money to help him. In another instance, three persons
were starving, so the township government and the mutual-aid society
immediately gave them rice. During the food shortage last summer, the
township government obtained rice from Kunglueh County, [3] more than two
hundred li away, for the relief of the masses. Excellent work was done along
these lines in Tsaihsi as well. Such township governments are really models.
They are absolutely different from the Tingchow Municipal Government with
its bureaucratic methods of leadership. We should learn from Changkang and
Tsaihsi Townships and oppose bureaucratic leaders like those in Tingchow
city.
I earnestly suggest to this congress that we pay close attention to the
well-being of the masses, from the problems of land and labour to those of
fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt. The women want to learn ploughing and
harrowing. Whom can we get to teach them? The children want to go to school.
Have we set up primary schools? The wooden bridge over there is too narrow
and people may fall off. Should we not repair it? Many people suffer from
boils and other ailments. What are we going to do about it? All such
problems concerning the well-being of the masses should be placed on our
agenda. We should discuss them, adopt and carry out decisions and check up
on the results. We should convince the masses that we represent their
interests, that our lives are intimately bound up with theirs. We should
help them to proceed from these things to an understanding of the higher
tasks which we have put forward, the tasks of the revolutionary war, so that
they will support the revolution and spread it throughout the country,
respond to our political appeals and fight to the end for victory in the
revolution. The masses in Changkang say, "The Communist Party is really
good! It has thought of everything on our behalf." The comrades in Changkang
Township are an example to all of us. What admirable people! They have won
the genuine affection of the broad masses, who support their call for war
mobilization. Do we want to win the support of the masses? Do we want them
to devote their strength to the front? If so, we must be with them, arouse
their enthusiasm and initiative, be concerned with their well-being, work
earnestly and sincerely in their interests and solve all their problems of
production and everyday life-the problems of salt, rice, housing, clothing,
childbirth, etc. If we do so, the masses will surely support us and regard
the revolution as their most glorious banner, as their very life. In the
event of a Kuomintang attack on the Red areas they will fight the Kuomintang
to the death. There can be no doubt about this, for is it not a plain fact
that we have smashed the enemy's first, second, third and fourth
"encirclement and suppression" campaigns?
The Kuomintang is now pursuing a policy of blockhouse warfare, [4]
feverishly constructing their "tortoise-shells" as though they were iron
bastions. Comrades! Are they really iron bastions? Not in the least! Think
of the palaces of the feudal emperors over thousands of years, were they not
powerful with their walls and moats? Yet they crumbled one after another the
moment the masses arose. The tsar of Russia was one of the world's most
ferocious rulers, yet when the proletariat and the peasantry rose in
revolution, was there anything left of him? No, nothing. His bastions of
iron? They all crumbled. Comrades! What is a true bastion of iron? It is the
masses, the millions upon millions of people who genuinely and sincerely
support the revolution. That is the real iron bastion which no force can
smash, no force whatsoever. The counter-revolution cannot smash us; on the
contrary, we shall smash it. Rallying millions upon millions of people round
the revolutionary government and expanding our revolutionary war we shall
wipe out all counter-revolution and take over the whole of China.
The second question concerns our methods of work.
We are the leaders and organizers of the revolutionary war as well as the
leaders and organizers of the life of the masses. To organize the
revolutionary war and to improve the life of the masses are our two major
tasks. In this respect, we are faced with the serious problem of methods of
work. It is not enough to set ...
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