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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
On October 1, 1949, the Chinese Communist Party, having conquered the major portion of the Chinese mainland by the force of its “People's Army of Liberation,” established, in the old imperial city of Peiping, a new regime called the “Central People's Government” of the “People's Republic of China.” For more than three years, ninety-eight per cent of the Chinese people have lived under this Communist dictatorship represented as a “People's Democracy.” Nor at the moment are there any visible signs that their condition may soon be altered. On the contrary, the Chinese Communists have proved themselves the adept disciples of their Russian mentors, capable of consolidating their rule with Soviet determination, thoroughness, and severity.
1 Peiping (Northern Peace) was the name the Kuomintang gave to Peking (Northern Capital) when it created the seat of its Government in Nanking (Southern Capital) in 1928. The Communists officially gave back the old name of Peking to Peiping on October 1, 1949.
2 This is one more example of Communist double talk. For the Communists, good words are always used to describe not-so-good deeds. The title “People's” is repeated again and again to represent a regime which is nothing but a Communist dictatorship. Vice-Admiral Charles Turner Joy, USN, former chief of the United Nations' delegation to the Korea truce talks, learned from personal experience that for the Communists, “… the end is the mother of the means, proof is by assertion, and rebuttal is by vilification … repetition is the alchemy by which fiction becomes fact and fact becomes fiction … the machinery of debate is used to destroy the purpose of debate, just as democratic institutions are used to destroy democracy….” (“My Battle Inside The Korea Truce Tent,” in Collier's, 08 23, 1952.)Google Scholar
3 Free China at the present moment consists of the island of Taiwan (Formosa) which is a bit larger than Holland and about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, the Penghu Archipelago (the Pescadores) and some small islands off the Chinese mainland coast. The total population of these islands is approximately 8,000,000. The Communists control the whole Chinese mainland including Tibet and the island of Hainan off the South China coast.
4 Indeed, on two occasions, in 1924 and 1937, the Kuomintang and the Communists were openly united. For a detailed narrative of the first “collaboration” see Schwartz, Benjamin I.: Chinese Communism and The Rise of Mao. Chapters III and IV (Harvard University Press, 1951.)Google Scholar
5 When Lt. General Albert C. Wedemeyer, USA, went to China in 1947 as the President's Special Representative, he had in his pocket a list of names of those Chinese with large financial holdings abroad. Chiang Kai-shek asked to see it, but Wedemeyer refused. The list was never published, much to the disappointment of the Chinese people. (See United States Relations with China, p. 825, issued by the Department of State, Washington, D.C., 1949.)Google Scholar
6 Thus, Li Ta-chao, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, in an article entitled “The Victory of Bolshevism,” written in October 1918, welcomed the Russian Revolution as the beginning of the cosmic liberation which he had been awaiting. “Henceforth,” he exclaimed, “all national boundaries, all differences of classes, all barriers to freedom will be swept away!” (Hsin Chingnien, Vol. V, No. 5Google Scholar, quoted in Schwartz, Benjamin I., op. cit., p. 14).Google Scholar
7 See Wu, Aitchen K.: China and The Soviet Union, pp. 268–270 (London, 1950.)Google Scholar
8 For a concise account of the Sian Incident see United States Relations with China, op. cit., pp. 45–48.Google Scholar
9 In June 1920, Gregory Voitinsky was sent to China by the Eastern Bureau of the Comintern. He met Chen Tu-hsiu in Shanghai and Li Tachao in Peiping and instructed them to establish an official Communist Party of China. However, whether any Comintern agent was present when the Chinese Communist Party was formally inaugurated in July 1921 is not clear, as no record of the event has been preserved. (See Kanichi, Hatano: Problems of Asia, in Japanese, II, pp. 23–24, Tokyo, 1935).Google Scholar
10 His actual phrase, Yimientao, when literally translated, means “leaning-on-one-side,” that is, on the side of the USSR.
11 “The Chinese Communist Party made little effort to draw workers into it on the ground that they were not yet ready to become Party members, consequently the direct influence of the Party on the workers was minimal.” (See Chung-hsia, Teng: A Short History of the Chinese Labor Movement, in Chinese, p. 46, (Yenan, 1943.)Google Scholar As late as June 1950, An Tzu-wen, Vice-Director of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (now Minister of Personnel) still complains that the number of urban workers in the Party was too few and it needs to be greatly increased. (See Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, Vol. III, 7–8, p. 38, 1952).Google Scholar
12 Sidney D. Bailey of Britain's Hansard Society presented a paper to the second congress of the International Political Science Association held at The Hague, Holland, on September 15, 1952, in which he says, however, that the Chinese Communists, in turning to the peasantry, instead of to the urban proletariat, merely continued the process of revising Marxism, a course begun by Lenin himself. (See The New York Times, 09 22, 1952).Google Scholar
13 See The People's Daily (Peiping), in Chinese, 02 6, 1949.Google Scholar
14 See The Southern Daily (Canton), in Chinese, 06 30, 1950.Google Scholar
15 Letter to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, June 1, 1927. Its contents are summarized in Tu-hsiu, Chen's “A Letter to Our Party Comrades,” p. 12Google Scholar. A discussion of this famous letter of Stalin's is to be found in Isaacs, Harold: The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, p. 294 (London, 1938).Google Scholar
16 See Fukwan, Hsu: The Chinese Communist Regime, p. 8 (Hong Kong, 1950)Google Scholar. “The methods,” writes Mao Tse-tung in The Chinese Revolution and The Communist Party of China, a pamphlet he issued on December 15, 1939, “to be adopted and the predominant pattern of the Chinese Revolution cannot be peaceful: success can be achieved only through armed struggle.”
17 Chou En-lai: Report on the Development of the Chinese Red Army, quoted in Okubo, Yasushi: Thirty Years of Chinese Communism, in Japanese, p. 143 (Tokyo, 1949).Google Scholar
18 “There are differences between the two men…. Lenin's disregard for individual rights and free public opinion, Lenin's inclination to regard traditions exclusively as hindrances or material for a complete realization of the Communist society of the future, Lenin's belief in the efficiency of terror, of manipulations and Machiavellian maneuvers—all were applied by Stalin in a more ruthless and very mechanical way. Lenin's oversimplifications appear, therefore, as relatively sophisticated if they are compared with Stalin's policies and methods.” (Gurian, Waldemar: “The Development of the Soviet Regime: From Lenin to Stalin,” in The Soviet Union, edited by Gurian, Waldemar, Ch. I, 8–9 (University of Notre Dame Press, 1951).Google Scholar
19 Tung Shih-chin, leader of the “Chinese Farmers' Party,” gave us an illuminating picture of how the Communists treated the “liberals” after they have served their usefulness in his book, Reminiscences of Communist Rule. He spent a year in Peiping after the Communists took over. (Shihchin, Tung: Reminiscences of Communist Rule, in Chinese (Hong Kong, 1951).Google Scholar
20 The Yangtse Daily, Hankow, in Chinese, 02 4, 1952.Google Scholar
21 The Chinese Communists merely took a leaf from the Russian book. “The Soviet regime believes itself to be always right, all other regimes to be always wrong. The Soviet leaders alone know where mankind is going, they alone are for the victory of truth, justice, humanity.” (See Gurian, Waldemar, op. cit., Ch. I, p. 55)Google Scholar
22 Shao-chi, Liu's statement was made at the Trade Union Conference of Asian and Australasian Countries, Peiping, 11 16, 1949.Google Scholar
23 See Hunter, Edward: Brain-Washing in Red China, (New York, 1951).Google Scholar
24 See The Freeman, (Hong Kong), in Chinese, 11 10, 1951.Google Scholar
25 A vivid description of how the college students' attitude toward Communist rule was changed from one of enthusiasm to that of hostility is given in MissKwei-lai, Yen's book: University Students' Life Under the Red Flag, in Chinese (Hong Kong, 1952).Google Scholar The author was a student of National Peking University, 1949–1952.
26 See The Kung Sheung Daily News (Hong Kong), in Chinese, 08 7, 1952.Google Scholar
27 The Central-South Region includes the Provinces of Honan, Kiangsi, Hupei, Hunan, Kwangtung, and Kwangsi.
28 See The Kung Sheung Daily News, 06 3, 1950.Google Scholar
29 The Sintao Jihpao, (Hong Kong), in Chinese, 07 13, 1950.Google Scholar
30 Ibid., May 29, 1950.
31 One Communist parity unit was worth roughly one U.S. dollar.
32 Part of the levies and fines imposed on the private companies during the “five anti” movement were “converted” into Government shares of these companies, which were then “reorganized” as joint “public-private” companies. Though the Communist Government only controls part of the shares of these companies, it exercises the full right of management. Through the application of such a zig-zag technique, the Communists acquired the ownership of virtually all of China's heavy industries and a substantial part of her light industry. At least nine private factories in Chungking, West China's economic center, were so “transformed” and announced in public. (See The New York Times, 09 1, 1952.)Google Scholar
33 See The People's Daily, 10 1, 1952.Google Scholar
34 See The Yangtse Daily, 09 17, 1950.Google Scholar
35 See Chi-sui, Yeh's special article on “Land Reform,” in The People's Daily, 07 18, 1950.Google Scholar
36 It was, therefore, promulgated two years before the Communists took power and only applied in the Communist-occupied territories.
37 July 2, 1950.
38 The British who recognized the Chinese Communist regime on January 6, 1950, have not succeeded in establishing official diplomatic relations between the two countries up to the present moment. For two years, a representative of the British Government has been stationed in Peiping. He has never been received by the Communist Minister of Foreign Affairs. The highest ranking Communist official who has met him is the Third Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
39 Soviet “advisers” to the Chinese Communist Army alone number 15,000. (See The Democratic Review (Hong Kong), in Chinese, 08 1, 1952Google Scholar; also Continental Affairs (Tokyo), in Japanese, 09 22, 1952.Google Scholar Both magazines gave detailed accounts on the Chinese Communist forces and their relationship with the Soviet Union.)
40 In this connection, it is interesting to note that the Chinese Communists celebrated the third anniversary of their regime, October 1, 1952, by anouncing the formal opening of the new Tienshui-Lanchow railway. (See The New York Times, 10 2, 1952.)Google Scholar
41 Of these the one that gets the most publicity in the Communist press is the “Spark Farm” on the southern bank of the Sungari River in Manchuria about thirteen miles east of Kiamutse. It is described as a 247-acre farm worked by thirty-six families whose members are paid on a “labor point” and “workday unit” system. It is a small affair indeed. (See The New York Times, 09 8, 1952.)Google Scholar
42 In its “mutual aid” statement released on 08 29, 1952Google Scholar, the Communist Ministry of Agriculture says that “agricultural loans this year had been extended principally to organized peasants.”
43 Reported in The Kung Sheung Daily News, 08 3, 1952.Google Scholar
44 Directive issued by the Communist Ministry of First Machine Industries, September 9, 1952.
45 See The People's Daily, 06 6, 1950.Google Scholar
46 Communist Minister of Finance Yi-Po, Bor's vague statement (on 08 6, 1952)Google Scholar that both the 1951 and 1952 budgets were balanced could only deceive the most ignorant. For a detailed analysis of the Chinese Communist regime's finances see Chu-chan, Chen's article in The Democratic Review, 09 1, 1952.Google Scholar
47 See The People's Daily, 08 2, 1950.Google Scholar
48 Ibid., July 26, 1950.
49 July 10, 1950.
51 Reported in The New York Times, 10 2, 1952.Google Scholar
50 It was reported that a Working Staff of 180,000 was dispatched to the Central-South Region alone to help the local staff to carry out the land reform program. (See The Sintao Jihpao, 09 26, 1950.)Google Scholar
52 See Ulam, Adam B.: “The Background of the Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute,” Review of Politics, 01 1951, p. 53.Google Scholar
53 After a careful study of the forty key documents of the Chinese Communist movement as selected by Brandt, Schwartz, and Fairbank, (Conrad Brandt, Benjamin I. Schwartz, and Fairbank, John K.: A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, Harvard University Press, 1952)Google Scholar we must be convinced that there is really no likelihood of a split between the Chinese and Russian Communists. Brandt, Schwartz, and Fairbank, in their concluding comments, aho recognized that “Chinese and Russian Communism are tied together by a complex tissue of doctrines and beliefs, nourished from the same sources and aimed at the same general ends,” although they seem to suspect that difficulties will necessarily develop between the two countries when the question of China's role in Asia comes up for decision (p. 483).