Speech at the Party Central Committee’s Emergency Meeting

On August 7, 1927, Mao Zedong made a speech at the Emergency Conference of the Central Committee of the CPC (The August 7th Conference) held in Hankou.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun was a phrase which was coined by Mao Zedong and was originally used by Mao during an emergency meeting of the Communist Party of China on August 7, 1927.

The conference criticized the erroneous line of the Chen Duxiu on the question of revolutionary leadership, revolutionary armed forces and agrarian revolution and removed him from the leading post. Vissarion Lominadze (Soviet Union), the representative of the Comintern was present in this Conference. Included in the Volume 1 of Collected Works of Mao Zedong.

In April and July 1927, Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei launched counter-revolutionary coups one after another, brutally massacred communists and revolutionary masses, and the vigorous Great Revolution was defeated. At the critical juncture of the Chinese revolution, the August 7th Conference focused on criticizing the right-leaning mistakes made by the Party Central Committee headed by Chen Duxiu in the late period of the Great Revolution in respect to the relationship with KMT, in respect to the issue of revolutionary armed forces, in supporting and leading the peasant movement and other issues. Mao Zedong's speech at the meeting seriously criticized Chen Duxiu's right-leaning mistakes. His speech touched on the following four issues:

Firstly, the KMT issue. That is, the KMT had never become the organization of the revolutionary United Front and it has voluntarily renounced its leadership over the revolutionary United Front. Mao Zedong pointed out: "At that time, everyone's basic idea was that the KMT was a people's house, but I don't know that it was an empty house and other people went to live in it. Later, she reluctantly moved to the empty house like a new girl on a sedan chair, but she never had the determination to be the owner of the house.”

Secondly, the problem of peasants. That is to say, ignoring the important position and role of peasants in the Chinese revolution, we have not given leadership and support to the peasant revolution that has already arisen, on the contrary, we have restricted and opposed it, and we have not closely united with the peasants, which are the most reliable ally of us. Mao Zedong said: "The peasants demand revolution, and the Party close to the peasants also want revolution."

Thirdly, military issues. That is to say, they despise military work, do not engage in military campaigns, and do not understand the importance of mastering the army and carrying out armed struggle. Mao Zedong pointed out: "in the past, we scolded Sun Yat-sen’s movement as a military movement, but on the contrary, we didn’t involve military movements but we conducted mass movements. Although Chiang and Tang (referring to Chiang Kai-shek and Tang Shengzhi) all started with guns, however, we don't care much about this. Although attention has been paid to this issue of gun, we still have no firm concept.” When talking about the struggle mode in the new period, Mao Zedong stressed that the Autumn Harvest Uprising was "non-military", it was rather a mass movement. Mao Zedong pointed out: "The failure of Hunan uprising is due to the mistake of subjectivism. We should pay great attention to military affairs in the future, we should bear in mind that ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’.”

Fourthly, organizational issues. That is to say, we cannot listen to the correct opinions of the lower level wholeheartedly and act wilfully, which violates the principle of democratic centralism of the Party. "Later, the higher authorities should listen to the reports of the lower level wholeheartedly, and then they can turn from non-revolutionary to revolutionary." Mao Zedong's speech summed up the experience and lessons of the failure of the First Great Revolution on several fundamental issues of the revolution, pointed out the basic direction of the revolutionary struggle in the new period, especially the idea of political power emerging from the gun barrel put forward by Mao Zedong. It is of great significance for the Chinese Communists to understand the characteristics of the Chinese revolution and find the correct revolutionary path.