Page 22 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume I.indd

16 MAO TSE-TUNG

The third section consists of those whose standard of living is falling.
Many in this section, who originally belonged to better-off families,
are undergoing a gradual change from a position of being barely able
to manage to one of living in more and more reduced circumstances.
When they come to settle their accounts at the end of each year, they
are shocked, exclaiming, “What? Another deficit!” As such people
have seen better days and are now going downhill with every passing
year, their debts mounting and their life becoming more and more
miserable, they “shudder at the thought of the future”. They are in
great mental distress because there is such a contrast between their
past and their present. Such people are quite important for the rev-
olutionary movement; they form a mass of no small proportions and
are the left-wing of the petty bourgeoisie. In normal times these three
sections of the petty bourgeoisie differ in their attitude to the revolu-
tion. But in times of war, that is, when the tide of the revolution
runs high and the dawn of victory is in sight, not only will the left-
wing of the petty bourgeoisie join the revolution, but the middle
section too may join, and even right-wingers, swept forward by the
great revolutionary tide of the proletariat and of the left-wing of the
petty bourgeoisie, will have to go along with the revolution. We can
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see from the experience of the May 30th Movement of 1925 and the
peasant movement in various places that this conclusion is correct.
The semi-proletariat. What is here called the semi-proletariat
consists of five categories: (1) the overwhelming majority of the semi-
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owner peasants, (2) the poor peasants, (3) the small handicraftsmen,
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(4) the shop assistants, and (5) the pedlars. The overwhelming
majority of the semi-owner peasants together with the poor peasants
constitute a very large part of the rural masses. The peasant problem
is essentially their problem. The semi-owner peasants, the poor peas-
ants and the small handicraftsmen are engaged in production on a
still smaller scale than the owner-peasants and the master handicrafts-
men. Although both the overwhelming majority of the semi-owner
peasants and the poor peasants belong to the semi-proletariat, they
may be further divided into three smaller categories, upper, middle
and lower, according to their economic condition. The semi-owner
peasants are worse off than the owner-peasants because every year
they are short of about half the food they need, and have to make
up this deficit by renting land from others, selling part of their labour
power, or engaging in petty trading. In late spring and early summer
when the crop is still in the blade and the old stock is consumed,