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PREFACE AND POSTSCRIPT TO RURAL SURVEYS 15
policy of requiring the landlords to reduce rent and interest and of
stipulating that the peasants should pay this reduced rent and interest.
In the sphere of political rights, it is the dual policy of allowing all
the anti-Japanese landlords and capitalists the same rights of person
and the same political and property rights as the workers and peasants
and yet of guarding against possible counter-revolutionary activity
on their part. State-owned and co-operative economy should be
developed, but the main economic sector in the rural base areas today
consists not of state but of private enterprises, and the sector of
non-monopoly capitalism in our economy should be given the oppor-
tunity to develop and be used against Japanese imperialism and
the semi-feudal system. This is the most revolutionary policy for
China today, and to oppose or impede its execution is undoubtedly
a mistake. To preserve the communist purity of Party members
scrupulously and resolutely, and to protect the useful part of the
capitalist sector of the social economy and enable it to develop ap-
propriately, are both indispensable tasks for us in the period of
resisting Japan and building a democratic republic. In this period it
is possible that some Communists may be corrupted by the bour-
geoisie and that capitalist ideas may emerge among members of the
Party, and we must fight against these decadent ideas; however, we
should not mistakenly carry over the struggle against capitalist ideas
within the Party to the field of social economy and oppose the
capitalist sector of the economy. We must draw a clear line of
demarcation between the two. The Communist Party of China is
working in a complicated environment, and every Party member,
and especially every cadre, must temper himself to become a fighter
who understands Marxist tactics. A one-sided and over-simplified
approach to problems can never lead the revolution to victory.

NOTES

The Central Committee’s directive of July 7, 1940 is the “Decision of the
1
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Present Situation and
the Party’s Policy”. The Central Committee’s directive of December 25, 1940 is
included in the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. II, as the article “On Policy”.
2 A hsiutsai was a holder of the lowest degree in the imperial examinations.
3 J. V. Stalin, “The Foundations of Leninism”, Problems of Leninism, Eng. ed.,
FLPH, Moscow, 1954, p. 31.