Collected Works of Mao Zedong on Rural Surveys

A collection of Mao Zedong's writings on the issue of rural surveys and research. It was edited by the Party Literature Research Office of the Central Committee of the CPC and published by the People's Publishing House in 1982. It contains 17 writings on rural surveys and research written by Mao Zedong from 1926 to September 1941, totaling 210,000 words.

Mao Zedong's rural survey reports were published in Yan'an in 1941 under the title of Rural Surveys, edited and prefaced by Mao Zedong himself, with a total of 12 writings. Based on Rural Surveys, the Collected Works of Mao Zedong on Rural Surveys includes five additional works, including "Against Bookism", the "Notice of the General Political Department on Investigation of Population and Land Situation", "About Rural Survey", "Examples on the Life of Tenant Farmers in China" and "Survey of Xunwu", which truly record the practical activities of Mao Zedong's rural surveys during the New-Democratic Revolution and systematically organize Mao Zedong's theoretical approach to survey research.

Mao Zedong's precious writings on rural research have an important position and far-reaching influence in the history of the Chinese revolution and the history of social research. The Collected Works of Mao Zedong on Rural Surveys clarifies that survey research is the fundamental method of combining the universal truth of Marxism and the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, and of the essence of Marxist epistemology. Mao Zedong's survey reports applied dialectical materialism to observe and analyze social, political and spiritual life, and were good at using the "dissecting the sparrow" method of investigation, i.e., the typical investigation method, some of which were individual examinations of individual aspects of things, individual stages of empirical facts and their synthesis to the whole. He took empirical facts as the starting point to view the process as a whole and to explain the problem and find the law. In addition, with the long-term practice of investigation, Mao Zedong also made a theoretical overview for the quantitative analysis in social survey.

The Collected Works of Mao Zedong on Rural Surveys has great theoretical and practical significance for people to study and research Mao Zedong Thought, especially Mao Zedong's epistemological thought, inherit and carry forward the fine tradition of investigation and research of the CPC, use the scientific attitude of investigation and research to correctly understand the situation of the country and the people, further implement the theoretical line of dialectical materialism, and build socialism with Chinese characteristics.