Page 124 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume I.indd

118 MAO TSE-TUNG

there has never been a unified regime. Secondly, one will under-
stand the gravity of the peasant problem and hence why rural
uprisings have developed on the present country-wide scale. Thirdly,
one will understand the correctness of the slogan of workers’ and
peasants’ democratic political power. Fourthly, one will understand
another unusual phenomenon, which is also absent outside China,
and which follows from the first (that in China alone there is pro-
longed and tangled warfare within the ruling classes), namely, the
existence and development of the Red Army and the guerrilla forces,
and together with them, the existence and development of small Red
areas encircled by the White regime. Fifthly, one will understand
that in semi-colonial China the establishment and expansion of the
Red Army, the guerrilla forces and the Red areas is the highest form
of peasant struggle under the leadership of the proletariat, the in-
evitable outcome of the growth of the semi-colonial peasant struggle,
and undoubtedly the most important factor in accelerating the rev-
olutionary high tide throughout the country. And sixthly, one will
also understand that the policy which merely calls for roving guerrilla
actions cannot accomplish the task of accelerating this nation-wide
revolutionary high tide, while the kind of policy adopted by Chu Teh
1
and Mao Tse-tung and also by Fang Chih-min is undoubtedly cor-
rect — that is, the policy of establishing base areas; of systematically
setting up political power; of deepening the agrarian revolution; of
expanding the people’s armed forces by a comprehensive process of
building up first the township Red Guards, then the district Red
Guards, then the county Red Guards, then the local Red Army troops,
all the way up to the regular Red Army troops; of spreading political
power by advancing in a series of waves, etc., etc. Only thus is it
possible to build the confidence of the revolutionary masses through-
out the country, as the Soviet Union has built it throughout the world.
Only thus is it possible to create tremendous difficulties for the reac-
tionary ruling classes, shake their foundations and hasten their internal
disintegration. Only thus is it really possible to create a Red Army
which will become the chief weapon for the great revolution of the
future. In short, only thus is it possible to hasten the revolutionary
high tide.
Comrades who suffer from revolutionary impetuosity overestimate
2
the subjective forces of the revolution and underestimate the forces
of the counter-revolution. Such an appraisal stems mainly from subjec-
tivism. In the end, it undoubtedly leads to putschism. On the other