Since January, 1966, a folk song collection movement has been under way in Taiwan. A total of some 2,000 songs has been collected. This is the largest and most systematic collection ever carried out in Taiwan.
Attempts to collect songs were made during the Ch'ing dynasty and the Japanese occupation period. But materials were far from complete. In 1944, Takatomo Kurozawa, a Japanese musician, came to Taiwan and collected a sizable number of folk songs. His interest was limited to the aborigines.
The new collection movement had these objectives:
1. About 98 per cent of Taiwan's people is of Han stock. The other 2 per cent is aborigine. Mainlanders who came to Taiwan in 1949 or afterward account for a fifth of the population. Various localities have their own customs. Collection, study and assimilation of these different musical styles will help create a national music.
2. Industrialization of Taiwan is eliminating the difference between rural and urban life. Folk songs are vanishing. They should be collected before it is too late.
3. Western music is dominant in education and prevalent in society. Folk songs can lead to the preservation of Chinese music.
The materials collected reflect a large variety of forms.
In Hsinchu county, where many Hakkas live, the melodious songs are sung at a high pitch. The "Tea Gathering Melody" and "Old Mountain Song" summon visions of old central China whence the Hakkas came.
About 2,000 people of the Saisiyat tribe live in Wufeng village in Hsinchu. Most of their songs are ordinary. But boys and girls can be heard singing church music of medieval Europe.
Listening to the songs of the Bunun tribe in eastern Taiwan, one can imagine a life of violence. Independent of other tribes, and especially of the Ami, which has a highly developed music, the Bunun has developed unique three and four-part music.
In southern Taiwan live the Paiwan, Rukai, and Puyuma tribes. The songs of Paiwan give an impression of recited sutras. The Puyuma songs suggest pastoral poetry. All three sing polyphonic songs.
The Ami tribe in eastern Taiwan has a large variety of songs of different forms. Ami lead in both musical quality and quantity.
The Yami tribe lives on Lan Hsu (Orchid island). Its songs are simple and tell of fishing and boat building. Every Yami boat has its painted carvings.
The Fukienese who came to Taiwan from Changchow and Chuanchow brought many folk songs. These developed into Taiwanese opera.
Mainland Today, fortnightly, "The Serious Separatism in the Red Chinese Armed Forces" by Wang Cheng—
Ever since the Nanchang uprising, a struggle between the so-called "proletarian military line" has been developing in the Chinese Communist armed forces. This is also a struggle between the "people's war" and the usual modern military viewpoint. After their defeat in the Korean War and Battle of the Taiwan Straits, some of the Red Chinese military cadres concluded that the "people's war" cannot stand up against concentrated use of modern weapons. Among those with such a conviction was Peng Teh-huai, former "minister of defense".
This led to a big struggle at the end of the Korean conflict. Mao Tse-tung advanced the slogan of "down with slave thinking and bury dogmatism". He accused those supporting the conventional military line of "attempting to negate the historical experience and fine tradition of our armed forces and lead the way to a capitalist line". Red Chinese military leaders purged during the struggle included Su Yu, chief of the general staff and Chen Chi, chief of the cultural division of the general political department.
A second struggle occurred in 1959. Victims included Peng Teh-huai, "minister of defense"; Huang Ke-cheng, chief of the general staff; and Tang Cheng, chief of the general political department.
For the Red Chinese armed forces, the "cultural revolution" is the third big struggle. According to Chinese Communist literature, the targets of the revolution are: "Those representing the capitalist class and occupying key military positions and the major components of the anti-party, anti-socialist, and counterrevolutionary clique." Early in November, 1965, before the "cultural revolution" had started, Lo Jui-ching was purged as chief of the general staff, thus eliminating the "representative of Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping in the military" and "a time bomb in the armed forces".
Mao's military line could not be accepted by most top army leaders. He termed the anti-Mao cadres' group as the "capitalist class headquarters" and his own as the "proletarian class headquarters".
The Red Chinese armed forces developed from an organization of bandits and factionalism existed from the beginning. Principal factions are: The Fourth Field Army led by Lin Piao and supporting troops led by Ni Yung-chen that developed from the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army; the First Field Army led by Peng Teh-huai and Ho Lung, developed from the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army; the Second Field Army led by Liu Po-cheng and Chen Keng which had its origins in the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army; and the Third Field Army of Chen Yi and Su Yu that originated in the New Fourth Army.
In 1949 when the Red forces were reorganized into these units, there were 70 corps. By 1953 Mao Tse-tung had abrogated the big military region system to reduce the power of military leaders. The 70 corps originally controlled by military regions were reorganized into 37 corps under direct command of Peiping.
Two years ago a struggle between the "Eight One faction" and the "San Wan faction" took place at the instigation of Mao. Leaders of the former are Chou En-lai, Chu Teh and Ho Lung, while the latter includes old cadres collected by Mao after his failure in the Nanchang uprising. Mao envied Chu's title of "Father of the Liberation Army".
The struggle among military factions is no less serious than that between military doctrines. At present Lin Piao trusts only his old cadres of the Fourth Field Army and Mao trusts only members of the "San Wan faction". In Sinkiang, southwest and east China where the First, Second and Third Field Armies are in control, anti-Mao activities are the most violent.
Issues and Studies, monthly, "A Brief Account of the Introduction of Karl Marx's Works into China" by Cheng Hsueh-chia—
Students of economics are all aware of the saying, "There is a book which countless people praise but only a few read; it is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. There is another book which countless people curse but only a few read; it is Thomas R. Malthus's Essay on Population." There is still another book which countless people praise and curse but which few have seen, much less read and understood; it is Karl Marx's Das Kapital.
Nineteen sixty-seven is the centennial of the publication of the first volume of Das Kapital. In the last hundred years, civilization has undergone striking technological and ideological evolution. In the field of ideology, nothing is more important than Marxism; and the core of Marxism is Das Kapital.
The Chinese first heard of Marx through the Japanese language. In 1902, possibly the first translation of Marx's name into Chinese was made by Liang Chi-chao (in "The Theory of the Revolutionary Evolutionists", New People, No. 18). In 1903 Chinese publishers brought out translations of two Japanese works on socialism, Namichi Murai's Socialism and Junzo Fukui's Modern Socialism. From Yung Meng-yuan's article, "Introduction of Marxism in Chinese Publications Before the 1911 Revolution", we know that Modern Socialism is composed of four parts, with the second part devoted to Marx and Marxism. In this book Fukui said that "socialism before Marx was nothing but empty talk" and that only Marxism "offers a profound and precise study of it on the basis of economic principles and facts and therefore appeals to most workers as an easy way to realize socialism". "Even those who are disgusted by socialism," he wrote, "find no ground for criticizing Marx's theories." The fourth part of the book covered the status of the socialist parties in Europe and America and said: "The organization of the international workers' alliance proposed by Karl Marx has become the dominating concern of the modern socialist movement." This book, however, had no influence on Chinese intellectuals when it was published.
In 1904 Marx's Communist Manifesto was translated into Japanese by the Common People's News and thus became available to Chinese revolutionaries living in Japan. In 1906 Chu Chih-hsin, a leader of the Tung Men Hui (predecessor of the Kuomintang) and its most progressive member, published in the party's organ, Min Pao No. 2, "Brief Biographies of German Socialist Revolutionaries", in which he translated into Chinese the ten summons of the Communist Manifesto and his interpretation of them.
The Japanese Socialist Party, which was established in February, 1906, had considerable influence on Chinese students living in Japan. They often attended its meetings. However, their heroes were not Marxists but Norodiniki—whom they called "anarchists" after the Japanese manner. They knew nothing about the history of the Norodiniki. However, they were quite moved by the anarchists' spirit of self-sacrifice as reflected in reports of anarchist activities carried in Min Pao.
Under the influence of the Japanese Socialist Party, the Chinese students in Japan were enthusiastic about socialism, but this socialism was not Marxism but anarchism. An article by Hsien Shih entitled "Anarchism and Socialism" (published in Min Pao No. 9) said, "There is no difference between the ultimate goals of anarchism and socialism, because both of them pursue the most complete freedom for the individual ... There is little distance between philosophical anarchism and the final stages of socialism ... Most of the assassinations carried out with bombs and poisons in Europe and America in recent years were done by Communist anarchists." These believers in anarchism did not really understand either anarchism or nihilism.
The Japanese first taught Marxism to Chinese intellectuals. For this reason, the Chinese intellectuals could only translate the works of their teachers. Except for those who learned German, French or English, they could not read Das Kapital. It was not until June, 1920, that Motoyuki Takamasa of Japan translated the complete Das Kapital. As a result of the October Revolution in Russia, many Japanese socialists devoted themselves to the study of Marxism. Among them Hajime Kawakami was the most famous and he had a significant influence on the Marxist movement in China.
The October Revolution had a great impact in China and led many Chinese intellectuals to accept Marxism. They believed that China should take the socialist road. Even Tai Chi-tao, later an anti-Communist theorist of the Kuomintang, shared this view.
The publication of translations of Marx's work began. The year 1929 marked the end of the first phase of the importation of Marxism into China. This phase was characterized by the following:
1. Small booklets and short pieces were translated first. The sequence was based on the whims of the translators rather than on importance.
2. Most of the translators were Communists, e.g., Li Chi, Li Chun-fan, Li Ta-chao, Li I-mang and Yang Hsien-chiang; a few were non-Communists or ex-Communists, e.g., Chen Wang-tao.
3. Most of the translators knew Japanese only; they had to translate from Japanese to Chinese. Later, some of them, such as Pang Chia-sheng and Chu Ying-chi, translated from German to Chinese.
4. Books often had more than one translation. In general, the later translations are better than the early ones but still leave much to be desired. Many new translations were published after 1930.
The period from 1930 to 1937 may be considered as the second phase of the importation of Marxism into China. The characteristics of this phase were:
1. After the Kuomintang expelled the Communists in 1927, the Chinese Communists launched the ill-fated Soviet campaign in rural areas while spreading socialist ideology in the cities. Their ideological activities played an important role in cultivating Communist cadres. Their work had many facets.
2. Important works of Marx and Engels were translated during this period. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, On Feuerbach, and Critique of Mechanistic Materialism are actually the same book under different titles; Chang Chung-shih's translation was fairly accurate. The Critique of the Political Economy is better translated than the Critique of the Economy but Kuo Mo-jo’s translation contains many errors.
3. The translation of the first volume of Das Kapital was published in this period. The first part of Das Kapital as translated by Chen Chi-hsiu (alias Pao Yin) was said to have been based on the first three chapters of the German edition. Actually it was based on the Japanese translation. Before publishing the translation, he had translated the Outline of the Economy by Hajime Kawakami, which was an introduction to Das Kapital.
After war with Japan broke out, a complete translation of Das Kapital was published. This marked the beginning of the third phase of the importation of Marxism. The features of this phase were:
1. The complete Das Kapital was translated by Japanese-educated Wang Ya-nan and Kuo Ta-li, who probably were fellow travelers at that time. The bulk of the translation was done by Kuo Ta-li, who also translated the works of D. Ricardo and the History of the Theories of Surplus Value.
2. After 1938, the Life Bookstore and Yenan Liberation Society became the translation and publication centers for Marxist-Leninist works. Besides the works of Marx and Engels, the Life Bookstore also translated books by such interpreters of Marxism as G. Plekhanov.
When the works of the second phase were published, Mao Tse-tung was still in the rural area of Kiangsi and not aware of the availability of the translations. What he read at that time were introductory writings, such as Communism ABC by N. Bukharin.
Mao's first contact with the real Marx and Engels took place during the third phase in Yenan. The stabilized situation enabled him to study Marx's works in Chinese translation. Mao knows only one language-Chinese. At that time, Mao also began to study the philosophy of Marxism with' the help of the Russian-educated Chen Po-tao It is still a question whether On Practice and On Contradiction were written by Mao himself. During the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chinese Communists devoted themselves to armed struggle. What they needed at that time were not the economic theories and the philosophy of Marx but the "revolutionary strategy and tactics" or the experience of revolutionary struggle contained in such works of Marx as The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, The Civil War in France and The Class Struggle in France.
That Mao Tse-tung does not like and does not understand Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism is no indication that he does not need its propagandists. He wants to utilize the Red Heavenly Father-Marx—and the Red Heavenly Brothers—Lenin and Stalin. His Marxist propagandists are the so-called "intellectuals of the 1930s". After attaining his ends and casting off his mask, Mao deserted and eliminated these propagandists and went on to launch the "cultural revolution". Through the mouth of Chen Po-ta, Mao Tse-tung declared his thought to be the highest form of Marxism-Leninism in the world. Stalin has been deprived of his status of "heavenly brother." Mao Tse-tung's thought has become the supreme knowledge and the Quotations from Mao Tse-tung the only book permitted.