| Abstract: | Mao's rural surveys, or investigations as he called them, conducted in the red base area in Jiangxi and Fujian provinces between 1927 and 1934, have long been overlooked in the scholarship especially in interpreting the issue of landownership inequality. Mao highly valued the role of investigation, and the importance of investigations to the formation of his view of class struggle and to his strategy-making is doubtless. This study for the first time reveals that Mao did not establish his macro conclusion of land distribution inequality on his gathered data, and that landownership concentrations were not so drastic in the red base area as Mao described. This study argues that other dimensions of rural inequality, including high debts, rentals, interest rates, and security deposits, appear as the greatest encumbrance to peasants and play a more important role in aggravating class confrontations. This study also argues that the role of poverty is critical in understanding the structural nature of the Communist Revolution. From poverty, Mao discovered not only a majority of the people but also moralism to support his revolution. |
