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114 MAO TSE-TUNG

ON THE IDEOLOGY OF ROVING REBEL BANDS

The political ideology of roving rebel bands has emerged in the
Red Army because the proportion of vagabond elements is large and
because there are great masses of vagabonds in China, especially
in the southern provinces. This ideology manifests itself as follows:
(1) Some people want to increase our political influence only by means
of roving guerrilla actions, but are unwilling to increase it by under-
taking the arduous task of building up base areas and establishing
the people’s political power. (2) In expanding the Red Army, some
people follow the line of “hiring men and buying horses” and
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“recruiting deserters and accepting mutineers”, rather than the line
of expanding the local Red Guards and the local troops and thus
developing the main forces of the Red Army. (3) Some people lack
the patience to carry on arduous struggles together with the masses,
and only want to go to the big cities to eat and drink to their hearts’
content. All these manifestations of the ideology of roving rebels
seriously hamper the Red Army in performing its proper tasks;
consequently its eradication is an important objective in the ideological
struggle within the Red Army Party organization. It must be under-
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stood that the ways of roving rebels of the Huang Chao or Li Chuang
type are not permissible under present-day conditions.
The methods of correction are as follows:
1. Intensify education, criticize incorrect ideas, and eradicate the
ideology of roving rebel bands.
2. Intensify education among the basic sections of the Red Army
and among recently recruited captives to counter the vagabond
outlook.
3. Draw active workers and peasants experienced in struggle
into the ranks of the Red Army so as to change its composition.
4. Create new units of the Red Army from among the masses
of militant workers and peasants.

ON THE REMNANTS OF PUTSCHISM

The Party organization in the Red Army has already waged
struggles against putschism, but not yet to a sufficient extent. There-
fore, remnants of this ideology still exist in the Red Army. Their