The plough—a traditional symbol of the peasantry—appeared in both the flag and member cards made by the local peasant associations.

In Guangxi, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei and a few other provinces, many peasant associations organized by the Chinese Communist Party[5] and left-wing Kuomintang under the direction of the Krestintern[6] and Comintern.

He organized the association of Hunan in 1926, which nearly half the peasants in the province (roughly 10 million) joined.

During the first stage of the Chinese Civil War (1927–1937), Mao Zedong made use of the associations in Hunan to further the communist cause, and lead the peasants into battle in the Autumn Harvest Uprising of September 1927.

[13] The Secretary-General of the peasants' association of Jiangxi province, Shu Guofan, successor to Fang Zhimin, was involved in the Nanchang Uprising around the same time.

In the Chinese Soviet Republic,[14] the association helped organize the peasants in the agrarian revolution.

[15][16][17] After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the peasants' association and then the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants' Associations served mainly to aid the new communist government with the land reform,[18] and then the introduction of People's communes[19] as a provisional organ of power.