On Mutual Aid and Cooperation in Agriculture

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of On Mutual Aid and Cooperation in Agriculture has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following edition: Two Talks on Mutual Aid and Co-operation in Agriculture, in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Vol. 5, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1977.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is a talk given by Comrade Mao Zedong to Chen Boda and Liao Luyan, Deputy Directors of the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the 15th of October, 1953 in preparation for the Third National Conference on Mutual Aid and Cooperation in Agriculture.

The Third National Conference on Mutual Aid and Cooperation in Agriculture was convened by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, China between the 26th of October and 5th of November, 1953.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#ON MUTUAL AID AND COOPERATION IN AGRICULTURE

#TALK TO RESPONSIBLE MEMBERS OF THE RURAL WORK DEPARTMENT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

#Mao Zedong

#15th of October, 1953

#★

Make a success of the agricultural producers' cooperatives and a big expansion of the mutual-aid teams will follow.

In the new Liberated Areas, every county, whether big, middle, or small, should set up one or two successful cooperatives this winter and next spring after full preparations; there should be at least one, on the average one to two and at most three, depending on how well the work has been done. Quotas should be allotted. To make the quota too big would mean rash advance and to make it too small would be a Right-wing deviation. To make the quota optional would be to let things drift. Can there be more than three? So long as the cooperatives meet the requirements, conform to the regulations and resolutions, are set up on a voluntary basis, have strong directors (their two chief qualifications being fair-mindedness and competence), and are well run, then the more the better, as Han Xin said about the number of troops he could command.¹

The prefectural and county Party committees should be urged to make vigorous efforts and do a good job. The rural work departments of the Central Committee bureaus and of the provincial and municipal Party committees should keep a firm grasp on this matter and make it the pivot of their work.

There should be control figures and an allotment of quotas. Allotment without compulsion — this is not commandism. After the October conference, there are four or five months to go, that is, November and December this year, January and February next year, and in the North, the month of March as well. We give clear notice now that early next year another meeting will be called to check up on the work. There will definitely be a checkup then to see how it is getting on.

Certain national-minority areas where the land reform has not been completed can be exempted from setting up cooperatives. The small number of poorly managed counties, for instance, counties where backward townships account for 30 to 40% of the total, where Party secretaries are incompetent, and where the work cannot start without leading to trouble, can be exempted for the time being and given no quota. Nevertheless, the provincial and prefectural Party committees should take responsibility for helping them to straighten things out and to create the conditions for starting the work next winter after the autumn harvest.

The general pattern is to proceed from the mutual-aid team to the cooperative, but it is also permissible to try and set up the cooperative directly. If you take the direct path and succeed, that will speed up the work. So why can't it be tried? It can.

The rural work departments at all levels should look upon mutual aid and cooperation as a matter of vital importance. Peasants working on their own cannot raise production to any great extent; therefore, we must promote mutual aid and cooperation. If socialism does not occupy the rural positions, capitalism inevitably will. Is it possible to take any road other than the capitalist or the socialist road? The capitalist road can also lead to increased production, but the time required would be longer and the course painful. We will not practise capitalism, that's settled. Yet capitalism is bound to spread unchecked unless we go in for socialism.

The general line, the general programme, industrialization, and socialist transformation should be discussed at the upcoming October conference.

Both «sustain private property» and the «Four Big Freedoms»² benefit the rich peasants and the upper-middle peasants. Why then are there relevant stipulations in the law? The law stipulates protection of private property, but the word «sustain» is not in it. Some peasants are selling their land now, which is not good, though the law does not prohibit it, we should make efforts to prevent them from doing so. Setting up cooperatives is the solution. Mutual-aid teams by themselves are not enough to stop peasants selling their land, only cooperatives, and big ones at that, can do so. Moreover, big cooperatives can eliminate the need of some peasants to rent out land, for a big cooperative of 100 or 200 households can solve the problem by taking in households of widows, orphans, and others not provided for. The question of whether small cooperatives can likewise take in a few has to be studied. The mutual-aid teams should also help widows, orphans, and others not provided for. If you can't set up a big cooperative, try a middle one; if you can't set up a middle cooperative, try a small one. But go for a middle or big cooperative wherever possible, and don't be upset at the sight of a big one. A cooperative of 100 or 200 households can be counted big, but a cooperative of even 300 or 400 households is also possible. Setting up several sub-cooperatives under a big cooperative is an innovation, and it is by no means necessary to dissolve it. Running a cooperative well does not mean bringing everything to perfection. Absorb all kinds of experience, and don't impose the same pattern everywhere.

More cooperatives should be established in the old Liberated Areas. But some new Liberated Areas may set up cooperatives at a faster tempo than some old ones. For instance, the central Shaanxi plain may develop faster than northern Shaanxi, the Chengdu plain faster than Fuping and other such places. We must dispel the idea that the new Liberated Areas are destined to go slow. In fact, the North-East is not an old Liberated Area, its southern part not differing much from the new Liberated Areas south of the Great Wall. Jiangsu and the Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou region will probably overtake the mountainous old Liberated Areas in Shandong and North China, and so they should. Generally speaking, the new Liberated Areas may be allowed more time for their work, but in those places where the cadres are strong, the population is dense, and the terrain level, cooperatives are likely to grow fairly quickly once a few models are set up.

There are now 6'000 cooperatives in North China. If the figure is to be doubled, quotas can be allotted straight away. If the figure is to be tripled, those concerned should be consulted. We should allot quotas reasonably and have control figures, otherwise we shall be working without clear aims. The North-East should increase its cooperatives by 100, 150, or 200%, and so should North China. The control figures should not be too high, so that the localities may surpass them. Overfulfilment will greatly enhance people's enthusiasm.

In developing cooperatives, we should strive for quantity, quality, and economy. By economy, we mean no failures; failures are a waste of the peasants' energy, with the bad end-result of losses both politically and in the production of grain. Our final objective is to produce more grain, cotton, sugarcane, vegetables, and so on. There will be no way out unless grain production is increased; otherwise, neither the State nor the people will benefit.

Nor will there be a way out unless more vegetables are produced in the suburbs; otherwise, neither the State nor the people will benefit. Since the outlying districts of the cities have rich soil and flat farmlands which moreover are publicly owned, big cooperatives may be set up there first. Of course, the work needs to be quite painstaking, and there is even less room for sloppiness, because growing vegetables is different from growing grain. We must set up pilot cooperatives and guard against rash advance.

To meet the urban demand for vegetables, we cannot rely on peasants working on their own to bring their produce to the market. Ways must be worked out at the production end as well as by the supply and marketing cooperatives. As regards vegetables for the big cities, there is a big contradiction between supply and demand at present.

There are also big contradictions between supply and demand in the cases of grain and cotton, and others will soon emerge in the cases of meat, fats, and edible oils. Demand is growing fast and cannot be met.

To resolve the contradiction between supply and demand, it is necessary to resolve the contradiction between ownership and the productive forces. Should ownership be individual or collective? Capitalist ownership or socialist ownership? Abundant supplies and the relations of production under individual ownership are utterly incompatible with each other. There must be a transition from individual ownership to collective ownership, to socialism. There are elementary cooperatives where land is pooled as shares, and there are advanced cooperatives in which land is owned in common, that is, by the cooperative.

In a sense, the purpose of the general line is the solution of the problem of ownership. State ownership is to be expanded by building new State enterprises and renovating and enlarging old ones. The two kinds of private ownership, that of the working people and that of the bourgeoisie, are to be changed respectively into collective ownership and State ownership (integration into socialism through joint State-private management). Only thus can the productive forces be expanded and China's industrialization accomplished. Only when the productive forces have developed can the contradiction between supply and demand be resolved.