The present invention provides a rubber composition which can sufficiently improve performance on ice and snow and wet gripping properties, and a pneumatic tire using the same. The rubber composition comprises, based on 100 parts by weight of diene rubber (A), 2 to 20 parts by weight of short fiber (B) having an average fiber diameter of 10 to 100 .mu.m and average fiber length of 0.01 to 4 mm, 1 to 10 parts by weight of particles (C) having a Moh's hardness of at least 5 and average particle size of at most 500 .mu.m, and 1 to 15 parts by weight of starch/plasticizer composite material (D), and the pneumatic tire has a tread made of the rubber composition.