Perhaps the most dangerous of these interpretations of Mao's "many roads to Socialism" speech is that there is or will be a change in the basic internal and external policies of the Peiping regime and that serious differences are developing between Peiping and Moscow.
While nobody, with the possible exception of Mao Tse-tung himself, knows all the reasons which prompted him to make the expansive assurance "to let a hundred flowers bloom and rival schools of thought contend," one conclusion that precludes any argument is that Red China is in deep trouble and so is Mao.
To those who keep abreast of developments in Red China, it is no secret that popular discontent has come to such a head that something has to give. In a marathon speech delivered before Red China's Parliament on June 26, even Premier Chou En-lai could not hide some of the unpleasant facts behind Communist double-talk. Among other problems, he disclosed that in 1956, Red China suffered a budget deficit of $700 million and overspent $550 million on capital construction. Blaming "natural calamities" such as floods and droughts, he admitted that 70 million people were on the verge of starvation.
Actually, reports from Peiping, recently confirmed by William Kinmond of the Canadian Globe Mail of Toronto, who had spent ten weeks touring Red China, indicate that some 200 million people out of the total population of 600,000,000 are subsisting on starvation diets. The housing program is lagging far behind population growth. Half-completed industrial plants are being abandoned for lack of capital. The workers show their discontent by staging strikes and staying away from the factories. Even the army is reported to be restless.
Criticism against the Peiping regime is not, of course, something new. When Mao encouraged the public to speak up, he was merely trying to bring criticism from behind closed doors into the open in order to provide, a safety valve against mounting popular discontent. That he had no intention whatsoever to change the basic policies of the regime is borne out by the chain of events which took place during the last few months. When, in the course of his February 27 speech, Mao expressed the opinion that no political party or person has the right to silence critics and that there should be no further resort to terror, it is entirely possible that he did not expect his words to be taken too seriously. In fact, it was not until weeks after Mao had hit upon the gimmick of inviting public criticism as a means to allay popular resentment that critical remarks began to be uttered.
One of the first critics to stick their necks out was Ko Pei-chi, lecturer at Peiping People's University. Writing in the May 31 issue of the Peiping People's Daily, an official Communist organ, he called the Communists profiteers who lived off the fat of the land at the expense of the people. In a second letter which appeared in the same paper, Ko was probably whistling in the dark when he said, "Up to this moment, masses of people still harbor worries about airing their views."
When it became known that Professor Ko had not been carted away in the middle of the night as a result of his anti-Communist remarks, other critics found courage to raise their voices. Newsmen demanded facilities to report actual situations. The walls of Peiping University were ablaze with colored placards demanding personal liberty and the withdrawal of interference by Communist agents. Even cabinet ministers and other prominent leaders began to climb on the bandwagon by adding their voices to the chorus of criticism.
Huang Shao-hsiung, former governor of Kwangsi Province and now a member of the Standing Committee of Red China's Parliament, called the National People's Congress a rubber stamp of the Communist Party. Not to be outdone, General Lung Yun, former governor of Yunnan Province now serveing as Deputy Chairman of Red China's National Defense Council, made known his view that it was grossly unfair that the People's Republic of China should have to pay all the expenses of the Korean War. Citing the fact that the United States had cancelled or written off as lend-lease its loans to the allies during the first and second world wars, he expressed dissatisfaction that Red China should have to pay interest on Soviet loans. He then raised the pertinent but embarrassing question whether the Soviet Union intended to reimburse China for the huge quantities of industrial equipment which Soviet troops had taken out of Manchuria after World War II. Gathering courage as he went along, Lung even wondered aloud whether the Communist Party was merely putting the people to a test, seeking out their views so that they could be "rectified" in the future.
The serious situation took a more serious turn when Mao Tse-tung found himself a target of attack. Chu An-ping, editor of the Kwangming Daily, the mouthpiece of Red China's eight minority parties suggested that perhaps some of the criticism should be directed against Chairman Mao. "People have raised many opinions against the junior monks," he said, "but no one has yet said anything about the old monks."
If the critics really believed that they could have their say and get away with it, they were quickly disillusioned. In a front page editorial of the June 21 issue of Peiping People's Daily, Madame Sun Yat-sen, Vice Chairman of the Central People's Government, attempted to stem the flood of criticism when she said "While helping the Communist Party in its rectification movement, we should in no way deny its leadership and its leading position. To deny the leadership of the Communist Party is tantamount to turning history back, letting capitalists return and plunging our nation into slavery again."
On June 23, the same Communist organ sharply rapped the knuckles of the critics by calling them "extremists" who took too much advantage of Chairman Mao's magnanimity. Singling out the "capitalists," it promised that the regime would counter-attack at a suitable moment.
A few days later, the same paper blandly dismissed the points raised by Professor Ko as "queer talk and absurd theories." On June 30, it revealed that Huang Shao-hsiung had confessed to "rightist" deviation in criticizing the Communist Party. His own Kuo min tang Revolutionary Party denounced him as "dishonest and vague." No respecter of the Queensberry rules, member of the Central Committee of that same party came out with the demand that Huang Shao-hsiung and Lung Yun "seriously reform" or else steps Should be taken to suspend them from the party.
As the situation threatened to get out of hand, Mao Tse-tung himself found it necessary to remind the critics that he had no compunction about using the stick when the carrot failed to serve his purpose. Answering his own question "What should our policy be toward non-Marxist ideas?" he said, "As far as unmistakable counter-revolutionaries are concerned, the matter is simple. We simply deprive them of their freedom of speech." It is as simple as that.
As if to prove he meant what he said, Mao issued an order on June 25 to publish regulations for the police force throughout the mainland. He pointedly reminded members of the police force that it was their business to deal with counter-revolutionaries, to prevent sabotage by "other criminals," to preserve public order and security.... and to ensure the smooth development of "Socialist construction."
It may be recalled that in his February 27 speech, Mao Tse-tung had virtually ruled out the use of terror when he said that the right way to allay popular unrest was to encourage public criticism and then by means of persuasion and education, eradicate both the criticism and the mistakes that caused it. The words ''persuasion'' and "education" may have a soothing sound, but to those who are familiar with Communist semantics, "persuasion" and "education" are merely euphemisms for "reform through labor."
Addressing Red China's Parliament on June 26, Premier Chou En-lai spelled out in no uncertain terms what the critics could expect if they did not curb their tongues. Noting that "remnant counter-revolutionary forces" still remained in Red China, he served the reminder that from 1949 to 1952, 42.3 per cent of those arrested had been sentenced to "reform through labor," and that 32 per cent had been placed under surveillance. Hiding facts and figures behind percentages, he did not see fit to specify just how many had been actually arrested, imprisoned or executed.
Mincing no words, Chou warned the minority parties that they would be excluded from the "united front" if criticism did not stay within bounds." "Some rightists," he charged, "are now attacking the basic system of the state in order to take the country from a Socialist course to a capitalist course. The Chinese people will not tolerate this."
Having been "persuaded" that discretion is the better part of valor, some of the critics are busy apologizing and writing confessions now. Among the first to recant were two Vice Chairmen of the Democratic League, namely, Chang Po-chun, Red China's Communications Minister, and Lo Lung-chi, Forestry Minister.
"I am greatly ashamed of myself," Chang said, "for having failed to live up to the expectations of the Communist Party and Chairman Mao, who has guided me and trusted me these past years. I had committed a serious ideological mistake."
What serious mistake had Chang committed? On May 22, he had the temerity to propose the formation of a "political planning board" which would give the eight minority parties equal or greater status than the Communist Party.
Continuing to castigate himself, he went on to say, "My stand was not firm, my understanding was confused and I had assumed a most flippant, liberalist attitude in dealing with state politics so that I came under evil political influences and was exploited by rightists."
In a confession published on July 4, Chang also admitted that he and Lo Lung-chi had favored "Anglo-American democracy" for Communist China. It did not take him long to find out that the Communists seldom for give and never forget. On July 8, the Peiping People's Daily came out with the warning that the struggle against bourgeois rightists was just beginning to be developed more deeply and that only now was the nationwide scope of the Chang-Lo alliance unmasked. In a burst of frankness, the paper revealed that a trap would be set to catch all those "who were planning to usurp power."
While it is too early to tell whether critics of the Communist regime will be permitted to air their views, or whether another purge is in the offing, this much is certain: seething unrest is gathering momentum on the Chinese mainland and Mao Tse-tung doesn't quite know what to do about it.
Some observers believe that policy changes are taking place on the Chinese mainland and that serious differences are developing between Red China and Soviet Russia. If, as claimed by these observers, differences do exist between Peiping and Moscow, they are completely overshadowed by the ominous fact that both Peiping and Moscow are working for a common goal--the defeat of the United
States and the Sovietization of the whole world. In his June 26 speech before Red China's Parliament, Chou En-lai was not bluffing when he ridiculed the idea that differences had developed among the Communist bloc because of Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolution. "Red China," he declared, "shall continue to learn seriously from the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries."
Not many people took Lenin seriously when he laid down the strategy that the shortest way from Moscow to Paris was via Peiping and Calcutta, that is, until the Communist pattern of conquest actually began to unfold itself. The oft-repeated pronouncement made by Mao Tse-tung and other members of the Communist hierarchy about the solidarity of the relationship between Peiping and Moscow should bring those of us who look for the breakup of the Communist empire back to the realm of reality.