Page 21 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume I.indd

ANALYSIS OF THE CLASSES SOCIETY 15

the idea cherished by China’s middle bourgeoisie of an “independent”
revolution in which it would play the primary role is a mere illusion.
The petty bourgeoisie. Included in this category are the owner-
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peasants, the master handicraftsmen, the lower levels of the intel-
lectuals — students, primary and secondary school teachers, lower
government functionaries, office clerks, small lawyers — and the small
traders. Both because of its size and class character, this class deserves
very close attention. The owner-peasants and the master handicrafts-
men are both engaged in small-scale production. Although all strata
of this class have the same petty-bourgeois economic status, they fall
into three different sections. The first section consists of those who
have some surplus money or grain, that is, those who, by manual or
mental labour, earn more each year than they consume for their own
support. Such people very much want to get rich and are devout
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worshippers of Marshal Chao; while they have no illusions about
amassing great fortunes, they invariably desire to climb up into the
middle bourgeoisie. Their mouths water copiously when they see the
respect in which those small moneybags are held. People of this sort
are timid, afraid of government officials, and also a little afraid of
the revolution. Since they are quite close to the middle bourgeoisie
in economic status, they have a lot of faith in its propaganda and
are suspicious of the revolution. This section is a minority among
the petty bourgeoisie and constitutes its right-wing. The second
section consists of those who in the main are economically self-
supporting. They are quite different from the people in the first
section; they also want to get rich, but Marshal Chao never lets them.
In recent years, moreover, suffering from the oppression and exploita-
tion of the imperialists, the warlords, the feudal landlords and the
big comprador-bourgeoisie, they have become aware that the world
is no longer what it was. They feel they cannot earn enough to live
on by just putting in as much work as before. To make both ends
meet they have to work longer hours, get up earlier, leave off later,
and be doubly careful at their work. They become rather abusive,
denouncing the foreigners as “foreign devils”, the warlords as “robber
generals” and the local tyrants and evil gentry as “the heartless rich”.
As for the movement against the imperialists and the warlords, they
merely doubt whether it can succeed (on the ground that the foreign-
ers and the warlords seem so powerful), hesitate to join it and prefer
to be neutral, but they never oppose the revolution. This section is
very numerous, making up about one-half of the petty bourgeoisie.