[A-List] Terrible riffraff...

["bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

Excerpts from: REPORT ON AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PEASANT MOVEMENT IN HUNAN

March 1927

Mao Zedong

[This seems a good time to revisit some of this guy's observations.  We'll
be hearing "terrible" and "going too far" and "riffraff" soon enough... if
we are doing our jobs.  -SG]


"IT'S TERRIBLE!" OR "IT'S FINE!"

The peasants' revolt disturbed the gentry's sweet dreams.

When the news from the countryside reached the cities, it caused immediate
uproar among the gentry.

Soon after my arrival in Changsha, I met all sorts of people and picked up
a good deal of gossip.

>From the middle social strata upwards to the Kuomintang right-wingers,
there was not a single person who did not sum up the whole business in the
phrase, "It's terrible!"

Under the impact of the views of the "It's terrible!" school then flooding
the city, even quite revolutionary-minded people became down-hearted as
they pictured the events in the countryside in their mind's eye; and they
were unable to deny the word "terrible".

Even quite progressive people said, "Though terrible, it is inevitable in a
revolution."

In short, nobody could altogether deny the word "terrible".

But, as already mentioned, the fact is that the great peasant masses have
risen to fulfil their historic mission and that the forces of rural
democracy have risen to overthrow the forces of rural feudalism.

The patriarchal-feudal class of local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless
landlords has formed the basis of autocratic government for thousands of
years and is the cornerstone of imperialism, warlordism and corrupt
officialdom.

To overthrow these feudal forces is the real objective of the national
revolution. In a few months the peasants have accomplished what Dr. Sun
Yat-sen wanted, but failed, to accomplish in the forty years he devoted to
the national revolution.

This is a marvelous feat never before achieved, not just in forty, but in
thousands of years.

It's fine.

It is not "terrible" at all.

It is anything but "terrible".

"It's terrible!" is obviously a theory for combating the rise of the
peasants in the interests of the landlords; it is obviously a theory of the
landlord class for preserving the old order of feudalism and obstructing
the establishment of the new order of democracy, it is obviously a
counterrevolutionary theory.

No revolutionary comrade should echo this nonsense.

If your revolutionary viewpoint is firmly established and if you have been
to the villages and looked around, you will undoubtedly feel thrilled as
never before.

Countless thousands of the enslaved--the peasants--are striking down the
enemies who battened on their flesh.

What the peasants are doing is absolutely right, what they are doing is
fine!

"It's fine!" is the theory of the peasants and of all other
revolutionaries.

Every revolutionary comrade should know that the national revolution
requires a great change in the countryside.

The Revolution of 1911 [3] did not bring about this change, hence its
failure.

This change is now taking place, and it is an important factor for the
completion of the revolution.

Every revolutionary comrade must support it, or he will be taking the stand
of counter-revolution.

THE QUESTION OF "GOING TOO FAR"

Then there is another section of people who say, "Yes, peasant associations
are necessary, but they are going rather too far."

This is the opinion of the middle-of-the-roaders.

But what is the actual situation?

True, the peasants are in a sense "unruly" in the countryside.

Supreme in authority, the peasant association allows the landlord no say
and sweeps away his prestige.

This amounts to striking the landlord down to the dust and keeping him
there.

The peasants threaten, "We will put you in the other register!"

They fine the local tyrants and evil gentry, they demand contributions from
them, and they smash their sedan-chairs.

People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are
against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs and consume their
grain.

They even loll for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to
the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry.

At the slightest provocation they make arrests, crown the arrested with
tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages, saying, "You dirty
landlords, now you know who we are!"

Doing whatever they like and turning everything upside down, they have
created a kind of terror in the countryside.

This is what some people call "going too far", or "exceeding the proper
limits in righting a wrong", or "really too much".

Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong.

First, the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have themselves
driven the peasants to this.

For ages they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and
trample them underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly.

The most violent revolts and the most serious disorders have invariably
occurred in places where the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless
landlords perpetrated the worst outrages.

The peasants are clear-sighted.

Who is bad and who is not, who is the worst and who is not quite so
vicious, who deserves severe punishment and who deserves to be let off
lightly--the peasants keep clear accounts, and very seldom has the
punishment exceeded the crime.

Secondly, a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or
painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so
leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and
magnanimous.

A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class
overthrows another.

A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the
power of the feudal landlord class.

Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot possibly overthrow
the deep-rooted authority of the landlords which has lasted for thousands
of years.

The rural areas need a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can rouse
the people in their millions to become a powerful force.

All the actions mentioned here which have been labeled as "going too far"
flow from the power of the peasants, which has been called forth by the
mighty revolutionary upsurge in the countryside.

It was highly necessary for such things to be done in the second period of
the peasant movement, the period of revolutionary action.

In this period it was necessary to establish the absolute authority of the
peasants.

It was necessary to forbid malicious criticism of the peasant associations.
It was necessary to overthrow the whole authority of the gentry, to strike
them to the ground and keep them there.

There is revolutionary significance in all the actions which were labeled
as "going too far" in this period.

To put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while in every
rural area, or otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities
of the counter-revolutionaries in the countryside or overthrow the
authority of the gentry.

Proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the
wrong cannot be righted.

Those who talk about the peasants "going too far" seem at first sight to be
different from those who say "It's terrible!" as mentioned earlier, but in
essence they proceed from the same standpoint and likewise voice a landlord
theory that upholds the interests of the privileged classes.

Since this theory impedes the rise of the peasant movement and so disrupts
the revolution, we must firmly oppose it.

THE "MOVEMENT OF THE RIFFRAFF"

The right-wing of the Kuomintang says, "The peasant movement is a movement
of the riffraff, of the lazy peasants."

This view is current in Changsha.

When I was in the countryside, I heard the gentry say, "It is all right to
set up peasant associations, but the people now running them are no good.
They ought to be replaced!"

This opinion comes to the same thing as what the right-wingers are saying;
according to both it is all right to have a peasant movement (the movement
is already in being and no one dare say otherwise), but they say that the
people running it are no good and they particularly hate those in charge of
the associations at the lower levels, calling them "riffraff".

In short, all those whom the gentry had despised, those whom they had
trodden into the dirt, people with no place in society, people with no
right to speak, have now audaciously lifted up their heads.

They have not only lifted up their heads but taken power into their hands.

They are now running the township peasant associations (at the lowest
level), which they have turned into something fierce and formidable.

They have raised their rough, work-soiled hands and laid them on the
gentry.

They tether the evil gentry with ropes, crown them with tall paper-hats and
parade them through the villages. (In Hsiangtan and Hsianghsiang they call
this "parading through the township" and in Liling "parading through the
fields".)

Not a day passes but they drum some harsh, pitiless words of denunciation
into these gentry's ears.

They are issuing orders and are running everything.

Those who used to rank lowest now rank above everybody else; and so this is
called "turning things upside down".