Nikolai Bukharin

“ There are some American writers who are of the opinion that the recent economic, political and other crises in China have devastated agriculture to the extent of about 40%. It is entirely impossible to test the accuracy of this assertion, but one thing is certain and incontestable: the result of the land poverty of the peasantry, of the enormous burden of taxation, and of the unexampled oppression of the population at the hands of foreigners, who have seized the ports, the duties, and the most important taxes, is that the peasantry is being impoverished at a rapid rate. ”

“ For the accomplishment of this task it is necessary to maintain the national revolutionary united front, which now consists not only of peasants, of workers, of artisans, nor only of the democratic and radical intelligentzia, but at the same time of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, of merchants and industrialists. It need not be said that not every merchant and every industrialist is joining in the struggle, but solely those who are not connected directly with foreign capital, those who are not to be counted among the compradores, or intermediaries between foreign capital and China. ”

“ In Peking itself the number of these declassed elements is exceedingly great, and though they demand nothing of life but its barest necessities, they are literally condemned to death by starvation. Thus they are readily enlisted by any militarist, and go over from one government to another, without feeling themselves socially bound in any way. This process is a symptom of a certain disintegration of the whole economy of the country, and is the expression of the frightful impoverishment of the Chinese peasantry. ”

“ The right wing of the Kuomintang relies upon this bourgeoisie, even upon its most Right inclined elements, and represents its class interests. On the other hand, the development of the revolution unavoidably demands the inclusion of the peasantry. It is not possible to govern against the peasantry and to win them at the same time, and the forces of the revolution cannot be organized without creating a peasant basis for this revolution.
These are the main difficulties of the present situation in China, and herein lies the greatest problem facing the Chinese revolution at the present juncture. ”

“ Thus we cannot say that in China there is no land question at present, and that this question may be struck out of the agenda of the Chinese revolution, since China is a land of small holders. This attitude would be entirely wrong.
The second question, closely affecting broad strata of the Chinese population, is the taxation question. At the present time the chief burden of taxation is borne by the broad masses of the workers, that is by the peasantry and artisans. I may here mention the fact that with respect to taxation China beats the record over any other country. ”

“ You are aware that in a country like China, and in such a revolution as the present one, the peasantry is bound by the logic of events to play a leading part, and the peasant question is bound to be closely bound up with the agrarian question, that is, the land question. ”

“ In order to complete this survey, I must state that although China, taken on the whole, is a country of small farms, still there is a considerable quantity of land in the hands of large owners; and the conditions here obtaining are characteristically those of large land ownership. Large tracts of country are in the hands of the remnants of the one-time feudal landowning official bureaucrats, or in the hands of the present Generals. There are about 200 landowners each owning an area of more than ten thousand Mu. ”

“ In the province of Hunan, in the Tschiante district, one third of the whole district belongs to the family of Yuang Schi Kai. I need not enumerate all these great land-owning families, but I may tell you that there are categories of landowners whose domestic servants alone, in the private service of the family, number more than a thousand persons. There are other tracts of land in the possession of the church, and the extent of this territory frequently exceeds that of the largest farming estates. ”

“ You must understand, comrades, that when we speak of such a small dimensional unit as a Mu, we must not compare the economic value of this unit with our desjatine, since the Chinese cultivate their land by the most intensive methods, and a smaller area thus possesses a correspondingly greater economic value. ”

“ If we take the big industries for example, we find that these increased gradually between 1918–23. Thus, for instance, the number of spindles in work in the textile industry amounted to 478,000 in 1918, 1,749,000 in 1921, and 1,802,000 in 1923. ”