Rural communism: The emergence of Maoism
During the 1930s rural China was a sea of human despair. Many peasants were overwhelmed by a myriad of taxes, plagued by debt, uncertain weather and diminishing expectations.
The alternatives to starvation among poorer peasants included selling their children, prostitution and eating bark from trees. Landless peasants were the poorest group, but millions of others owned land that was not producing even at a subsistence level. These peasants were treated with contempt by bureaucrats and often owed landlords more than they produced each year.
The GMD reforms made little impact. The rent limits were not implemented. By the mid 1930s most peasants still paid the landlords 50 to 60 per cent of crop output. According to Buggy (1988, p 175), lending from agricultural cooperatives accounted for only one per cent of peasant borrowing by 1935.
Maoism
South-west of Nanjing in the Jiangxi Province near the town of Ruijin, Mao Zedong and Zhu De were addressing the plight of the peasants and building a rural soviet 
. There were up to fifteen communist bases scattered across China in areas difficult for GMD forces to reach.
The Central or Jiangxi Soviet was significant because it was from here that Mao Zedong Thought emerged during 1929 to 1934. Mao Zedong rejected orthodox Marxist beliefs and maintained a flexible approach to the reforms that were introduced in Jiangxi.
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Mao Zedong organised the redistribution of land. Any land owned by landlords and wealthy gentry in the region was given to the peasants.
The more resistant landlords were arrested, subjected to trial by peasants and executed. However, Mao did not persecute wealthy peasants as they were often influential in the local communities and effective producers.
Mao also encouraged the reduction of taxes imposed on peasants and the establishment of cooperatives . Edgar Snow (1968, p186) estimated that there were a thousand cooperative farms in Jiangxi by 1933.
Mao believed in the importance of talking to peasant groups in the area to discern their needs and incorporating their requirements into party policy. This was one part of the Mass Line .
The Marriage Law of 1931 banned forced marriages and the sale of women in the soviet. There were also bans on begging, opium smoking and gambling among peasants. Education was encouraged, usually incorporating extensive political propaganda. The party cadres and the army were instructed to treat peasants with respect.
The Red Army was envisaged by its leaders as fish in the sea of rural China because of their reliance on peasant support for food, shelter and intelligence. The army was to empower the peasants. The army's purpose and later its title, was to be the People's Liberation Army. Mao instructed the Red Army to be different from the Guomindang. The Guomindang conscripted soldiers who treated the peasants with no respect, stealing food and other peasant resources and dishonouring women when they stayed in villages.
The Eight Points of Attention towards peasants were drilled into the soldiers by the party cadres:
- Replace all doors when you leave a house (wooden doors were often used as beds).
- Return and roll up the straw matting on which you sleep.
- Be courteous and polite to the people and help them when you can.
- Return all borrowed articles.
- Replace all damaged articles.
- Be honest in all transactions with the peasants.
- Pay for all articles purchased.
- Be sanitary, and establish latrines (toilet pits) a safe distance from people's houses.
Zhu De became commander of the Red Army in 1928. He increased the force to 200,000 troops by 1933. However, the Red Army lacked heavy artillery, grenades, shells and even rifles and was no match for the heavily armed, numerically superior GMD army. The Red Army developed guerrilla tactics in the Jinggangshan region. The communists had to use surprise tactics rather than large-scale mass battles because they possessed inferior numbers and weaponry compared to the Nationalists.
To motivate and educate their troops Red Army commanders used the following slogan:
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 Reproduced with the permission of Liu Wei-En |
The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy halts, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue. |
Between 1930 and 1934 Jiang Jieshi orchestrated five anti-communist 'Bandit Extermination' campaigns. The Red Army was able to repel the first four attacks. The fifth campaign was commanded by the German General von Seeckt. He used a series of blockhouses and nearly one million GMD soldiers to encircle the communist base in Jiangxi. With the threat of annihilation the Communists planned the evacuation of the soviet.
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