Chinese Communists are being hoist by their own petard. Mao Tse-tung has said that struggle must go on for a thousand or ten thousand years. It is going on. The glorification of one revolution encourages the counterrevolutionaries. Power holders are finding that revolution does not equate to political stability. Confucius was denigrated to the point of destroying Chinese mainland social control. Remembering the heady days of the "cultural revolution," younger people believe in nothing and defy the authorities.
Workers have rebelled against their orders and defied troops and militia in many places. Railway employees have slowed services and sabotaged shipments. Theft again is common in the cities and not unknown in the countryside. Young people sent down to the rural areas have caused trouble. Many have stolen back into the cities to live by illegal means. Although educated by Communist definition, these youths have no hope and no reason to accept discipline. Teachers and the police are afraid of young people.
All the slogans in the world cannot change the forces of anti-Communism that are building up on the Chinese mainland. Whether of leftist or rightist persuasion, the supposed leaders sit in their comfortable homes, are driven in their comfortable cars and lead their comfortable lives. They are aware of the seething masses just outside the door but do not know what to do. So they coin new phrases and repeat old ones. When the campaign against Confucius had got down to the point of lip service, a new target was found. It is the medieval novel "Water Margin," which terminated revolution with capitulationism.
The power holders - even the Chiang Ching leftists, who would like to make use of youth as a force to climb to the top rung are worried about the deterioration of social control. City street organizations have existed from the time the Communists first usurped mainland power. Security people are found everywhere; they work in and through city groups of from 15 to 40 families. Their search for "class enemies" is endless and largely futile. Everyone is their enemy. Dispatch of militia and armed forces into some neighborhoods has not changed things.
Now the authorities have piled another organization atop all those they already have. The new one is concerned with "courtyards" rather than streets. Each courtyard organization has 10 or more families.
The unit of social control is getting smaller and smaller. The main target is unruly, undisciplined youth but the effort must inevitably fail. Those who have outwitted the authorities in returning from farm to city, who are living by their wits and on the proceeds of crime, will not be easily caught. Many have the support of disillusioned parents or other family members.
Communism is being destroyed from within by its own hypocrisy. The hundreds of millions of mainland people are finding that slogans are empty shells. The regime is too weak even to protect itself. It has lost the workers and the peasants. Youth is waiting for its leaders to emerge; then it will strike. The total police state is collapsing under the weight of its ponderous security system. If everybody is compelled to report on everyone else, no one can be caught, no one is guilty.
The tasks of the power holders are not being made easier by Mao's apparent support of the "Water Margin" criticisms. "Capitulationism" is the main target. Who is capitulating - or who might do so? The power holders could be easing up on agricultural collectivization. That would be capitulationism. They could be failing to press for elimination of incentives. That would be capitulationism. So would any return to the order that obtained before the "cultural revolution." Especially dangerous for the power holders is new reinforcement of the idea that "rebellion is justified." Most of the initial articles criticizing "Water Margin" included this Maoist slogan, which has been a primary reliance of the Chiang Ching leftists.
Power holders are calling for unity, discipline and party spirit. This is not dissimilar from the summons of Sung Chiang the "Water Margin" hero, to loyalty, justice, righteousness, brotherhood and comradeship. Sung Chian~ is now attacked for utilizing these essentially Confucian concepts to coerce the revolutionaries of "Water Margin" into capitulationism.
In the Maoist line of criticism, Sung Kiang is now the bad guy, while Chao Kai, "who was resolved to rebel to the end," is the good guy. Do Sung Chiang and Chao Kai have counterparts among the power holders, or even among the power holders and the leftists? This is not yet clear.
The Maoists' new introduction to "Water Margin" weaves fact together with history in tracing the "revolutionary struggle" of the peasants in the early 12th century. Sung Chiang was the leader of an uprising which subsequently took a capitulationist turn. When Chao Kai led "a group of revolutionaries" to Liangshan, Sung Chiang criticized him, claiming "rebellion is criminal." Sung Chiang later joined the Liangshan group for the purpose of "sabotaging the peasant revolution from within." Mao Tse-tung maintains that Sung Chiang took the "world outlook of the landlord class" and usurped leadership from Chao Kai. After Chao's death, Sung took over and undid Chao Kai's struggle against the feudal rulers, changing it into a capitulationist line of loyalty to the landlord class. The revolutionaries were suppressed. According to the new introduction, the development of capitulationism starts with betrayal within the revolutionary ranks. The betrayers then serve as lackeys of the reactionary ruling class.
Mao himself has been identified with quotations which assert: The merit of the book lies in the portrayal of capitulation. It serves as teaching material by negative example and helps the people recognize capitulationists. The book opposes corrupt officials only, not the emperor. Chao Kai alone rebelled. Sung Chiang pushed capitulationism and practiced revisionism.
One article summed up the criticism of "Water Margin" this way: "The reactionary ideology of the Confucian school was an ideological weapon of the landlord class for advocating class capitulation to the revolutionary peasant in feudal society, and was a theoretical pillar of the alien class element that had wormed its way into the peasant insurgent ranks and that pursued capitulation and betrayal." (Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao also de pended on this ideology). "We must sum up the historical experience of this struggle and draw a demarcation line between revolution and capitulation."
The unanswered question is how much Maoist revolution the people of the Chinese mainland are prepared to put up with. Growing instability and lawlessness suggest that hundreds of millions are ready to "capitulate" to those who will assure law and order and the return of the self-discipline that can emerge only out of a free society.
This is the record of Chinese Communist and related events in the period from September 16 to October 15:
SEPTEMBER 16 - The London Daily Telegraph reported Chinese Communist "diplomats" are showing increasing reserve in their attitude toward Henry Kissinger, the American secretary of state, who said the Chinese Communists have no influence in Europe or the Middle East. He also said they had failed to gain leadership of the Third World.
Pravda said a Soviet helicopter and its three crew members who landed on the Chinese main land 18 months ago were still being held there "without any grounds." According to the Soviets, pilot Alexei Kurbatov and his two-man crew were on a mission to pick up an ailing border guard when they got lost in stormy weather, ran out to fuel and landed on the mainland March 14, 1974.
Columnist William F. Buckley Jr. complained to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about "rapturous descriptions" of life on the Chinese mainland by people associated with Kissinger. Buckley interviewed Kissinger on a television program. He mentioned Ken Galbraith (Harvard University professor), James Reston (columnist of New York Times) and Barbara Tuchman (General Stilwell's biographer). Kissinger said he never personally told the American people such things about Red China.
The "New China News Agency" reported 240,000 middle school graduates of Liaoning province in Northeast China went to the country side for resettlement this year. The Peiping regime held this up as an example to other provinces not mentioning how the nearly quarter of a million young people were persuaded to accept rustication.
Mao Tse-tung's newest slogan is "promote stability and unity." People's Daily addressed it to Tibetans in Mao's name. Hongkong sources said it was intended to promote production, which has been slipping.
SEPTEMBER 17 - Workers' uprisings are spreading and gaining momentum on the Chinese mainland. According to Maoist radio broadcasts monitored in Taipei, the disturbances have spread from Hangchow to the provinces of Kirin, Hopei, Honan, Hupei, Hunan and Fukien.
Peiping recorded its biggest trade deficit last year, according to statistics compiled by analysts in Hongkong. The record deficit of more than US$1 billion reflects the impact the recession in the capitalist world had on the mainland.
At least five cities on the Chinese mainland are in the process of setting up a new lower level of urban government - the socialist courtyard or "multi-story building management committees." These units, which encompass between 100 and 200 people, are smaller and more manageable than the next level of urban organization, the street and neighborhood committee, which can include many thousands of people. Peihsinchiao Street in Peiping takes in 33 families with 145 people. The management committee of seven includes four workers, two residents and one youth representative.
SEPTEMBER 18 - The Thai government suspended barter deals involving Chinese mainland crude oil because of a high wax content that makes processing in refineries not specifically equipped to handle it almost impossible.
Peiping is disappointed by the slow pace of West Europe's unification and its failure to establish an integrated defense system, West German parliamentarian Franz-Josef Strauss said. Strauss told reporters that during a two-and-a-half-hour meeting in Peiping, "foreign minister" Chiao Kuan hua also said Soviet militarism threatens Europe.
Agricultural development on the Chinese main land has fallen into stagnation, according to a Maoist radio broadcast monitored in Taipei. "Vice premier" Chen Yung-kuei admitted agricultural development has been "at snail's pace."
SEPTEMBER 19 - A British commentator castigated foreign visitors to the Chinese mainland for believing Communist propaganda and for their inability to ask searching questions. Writing in the London Times. Bernard Levin said some travelers to the mainland see tiny villages kept especially for the purpose, drink with their hosts to "peace and friendship," note the extraordinary width of the streets in Peiping and return to London or New York in a state of idiot ecstasy about the "new civilization that has solved all the problems of mankind."
Christian Beacon, a weekly religious newspaper in the United States, voiced opposition to American trade with and technical aid to the Chinese Communists.
The living standard of people on the Chinese mainland corresponds roughly to that of 1820-30 on the American frontier, said U.S. Rep. John Slack (D-W.Va.), member of a Congressional delegation which visited the mainland. "In the agricultural communes, people are poorer and living an existence much more rugged than that found during the sodbusting era in the U.S.," said Rep. John B. Anderson (R-Ill.), another member of the group.
Linn's Stamp News, the world's largest and most informative weekly stamp newspaper, published in Sidney, Ohio, has been boycotted by Peiping's "China Stamp export company" because the newspaper advertises stamps of the Republic of China.
One of the Maoist chieftains in Shansi province, Hsien Chen-hua, has lost his posts as "party first secretary" and "director of the Shansi provincial revolutionary committee." His replacement is Wang Chien.
SEPTEMBER 20 - Moon cakes and daily necesssities were sent to the Chinese mainland from Kinmen by balloon and raft for the Mid Autumn Festiva1. Copies of Kuomintang chairman Chiang Ching-kuo's message to the people of the mainland were attached to the gift parcels.
Western diplomatic analysts in Hongkong said the use of troops to maintain order and boost production in troubled Chekiang province had only "limited" effect.
SEPTEMBER 21 - The Peiping regime is giving top priority to manipulating Japanese mass communications in a plot to communize Japan, the Kokumin Shimbun reported. The periodical obtained the secret information in Hongkong. It said Chin Su-cheng, "first secretary" of the Chinese Communist "embassy" in Tokyo, presented a report containing his proposal to the Peiping authorities.
The health of Chou En-lai, who has been hospitalized for more than 18 months, apparently has deteriorated. Edward Heath, former British prime minister and Conservative Party leader visiting Peiping, said Chou wanted to meet him but that his doctors said no.
Commenting on Peiping's recent denunciation of Sung Chiang, a figure in the novel "Water Margin," Frank Ching said in the New York Times: "All signs indicated that Peiping was once again gearing up for that quintessentially (Red) Chinese phenomenon, a new ideological campaign."
SEPTEMBER 22 - More than 1,200 Chinese Communist militia leaders in South China have been told to criticize the novel "Water Margin" and attack capitulationism, a Hongkong Communist newspaper said. A militia conference was held in Canton for the first time in 12 years.
"New China News Agency" revealed that Chang Chun-chiao, a Politburo member and "vice premier," was visiting North Korea. No reason for the trip was given.
Fifteen thousand junior and senior high school graduates left Wuhan for resettlement in the countryside recently, Hongkong reports said. More than 10 million young people have been rusticated at Mao Tse-tung's command since 1968. This year's quota is 1.5 million.
The highest ranking North Vietnamese delegation to visit Chinese mainland since the Indochina war arrived in Peiping. The group was led by Le Duan, secretary of the North Vietnamese Communist party. Peiping has expressed fear of Hanoi orientation with the U.S.S.R. and has asserted that the Soviet is seeking bases in Vietnam.
SEPTEMBER 23 - The Maoists had to send troops to help cargo loading and unloading operations in Shanghai recently because of unrest among longshoremen there. According to Shanghai radio, troops of the "second battalion" of the "Shanghai garrison district" were ordered to help the "worker class do a better job."
Peiping's top active leader told North Vietnamese leaders that united opposition to both the Soviet Union and the United States was "a vital task." "Vice premier" Teng Hsiao-ping's remarks about the dangers of "superpower hegemonism" came at a banquet for a delegation from North Vietnam. Peiping is not pleased with the state of relations with Hanoi, according to diplomatic analysts in Peiping.
SEPTEMBER 25 - The recent uprising by workers in Hangchow is only one of numerous anti-Communist actions which have spread on the mainland, said Chow Kwang-han, a freedom seeker, at a rally in Taipei.
A dispatch from Valetta noted that Peiping had used money and manpower to outmaneuver the Russians on Malta. Peiping made a £1 loan plus a £1 gift and sent 500 engineers and technicians to help build a dry dock and train Maltese workers. The U.S.S.R., which hasn't given the Maltese anything, has been unable to obtain per mission to open an embassy in Valetta.
The Chinese Communists want to keep Macao in its present status to facilitate subversive activities in Southeast Asia, according to a Chicago Daily News report. The story said: "The Communists can get away with things in Macao that they can't get away with in British Hongkong. Macao is a regular point of entry and exit for Communist agents and guerrillas operating in Thailand and Malaysia."
The Soviet news agency Tass accused Peiping leaders of trying to gain an imperialistic foothold in East Africa and ran a lengthy review of a book critical of Mao Tse-tung. Tass said a new railway Peiping helped to build between Tanzania and Zambia is regarded by the Maoists as a ''Trojan horse" with which they hope to consolidate their presence in East Africa.
Foreign ministers of Peiping and Tokyo met for more than six hours in New York but failed to break their deadlock in negotiations for a treaty of "peace and friendship."
SEPTEMBER 26 - Yugoslav reports said the Chinese Communists were sending military commanders to serve at lower echelons or even as common soldiers. Peiping said the measure was to strengthen Communism in the armed forces.
Peiping, evidently alluding to the Portuguese Communist party's failed power bid, charged at the U.N. that the Soviet Union had "brazenly stretched its tentacles into the Iberian peninsula." "Foreign minister" Chiao Kuan-hua also told the General Assembly that the Russians had violated Norway's air space and "concentrated massive military forces and carried out unbridled provocations in the seas of northern Europe and the Mediterranean."
SEPTEMBER 27 - The course of agricultural development on the Chinese mainland will likely lead to an internal power struggle in the Maoist hierarchy, experts in Taipei said. The Maoists have recently convened a series of meetings in an attempt to solve their difficulties in agriculture. They failed to achieve their objective, the experts said.
Chiang Ching is a leading opponent to relaxation of the ideological drive in the agricultural sector as a means of increasing food production, intelligence sources in Taipei disclosed. Mao Tse-tung's wife voiced her opposition to the ideological relaxation in a letter addressed to a top-level agricultural conference.
U.S. Rep. Philip M. Crane said the Communist regime on the Chinese mainland is still plagued by people who are willing to fight for freedom. The Republican Congressman from Illinois cited the latest issue of Red Flag, which warned of "factional disputes, jealousy, capitalist tendencies, lack of discipline and military-civilian rivalry."
SEPTEMBER 28 - The Grazer Autumn Fair authority in Austria has rejected a Chinese Communist protest against Republic of China's participation.
SEPTEMBER 29 - Tokyo and Peiping have failed to agree on reopening negotiations for a treaty of "peace and friendship" and the project probably will be shelved for the time being, Yomiuri said.
SEPTEMBER 30 - U.S. Ambassador to Singapore John Holdridge told members of the American University that diplomats in Peiping have no contacts with the Chinese mainland people. Hold ridge was deputy chief of the American "liaison office" in Peiping.
The Moscow newspaper Izvestia marked the eve of Chinese Communist "national day" with a sharp attack on Peiping leaders as betrayers of the revolution. The paper sent greetings to "people" but heaped scorn on Mao Tse-tung and other Peiping officials.
OCTOBER 1 - Workers, peasants, youths, demobilized soldiers and even Maoist cadres are joining forces in a struggle against the Chinese Communists, experts on the mainland affairs said in Taipei. The experts said upheavals are spreading far and wide from the coastal regions inland and from cities to rural areas.
Peiping accused the Soviet Union of having perpetrated armed aggression and military provocations for years against the Sinkiang Autonomous Region in northwest China bordering the Soviet Union. "It is essential to see that the main danger Sinkiang faces comes" from the Soviet Union, People's Daily said.
OCTOBER 2 - A former "minister of education," Yang Hsiu-feng, is among a number of purged Chinese Communist party and regime officials who have been rehabilitated. This was reported in Hongkong by experts who analyzed radio reports which gave the names of those attending the "national day" banquet in Peiping. Others were Ho Lin, an expert on Hegel; Hu Chiao-mu, formerly an alternate member of the party's central secretariat; Hu Yao-pang, formerly frrst secretary of the party's Shensi provincial committee; Niu Yin-kuan, former "vice minister of commerce;" and Hsu Kuang-hsiao, a former "vice minister of culture." Military leaders included Lo Jui-ehing, former "chief of the general staff;" Tan Cheng and Hsiao Hua, former directors of the general political department; and Fu Chung, deputy director of that department.
The third ranking member of the Chinese Communist party, Wang Hung-wen, attended an October 1 celebration in Shanghai.
The already strained relations between Peiping and Hanoi appear to have become more tense in the view of Washington Star reporter Henry Bradsher. There might even have been an open dispute hidden behind continued "protestation of friendship" during North Vietnamese party leader Le Duan's visit in Peiping, he said.
Peiping hinted at problems with ethnic minorities in Sinkiang where, it said, some people are befriending the Russians under the cloak of religion. People's Daily said spies and traitors had "openly incited rebellion and perpetrated armed aggression." Sinkiang has a large Muslim population.
OCTOBER 4 - The low-key celebration of the 26th anniversary of the Peiping regime suggests that the Maoist regime is engulfed in the quagmire of internal power strife, Taipei observers said.
OCTOBER 5 - The non-appearance of a joint editorial on the 26th anniversary of the Peiping regime has led some to suggest that this may indicate disunity, the South China Morning Post said in Hongkong.
The Soviet Union has told Peiping it would like to normalize relations. There was no reply from Peiping.
OCTOBER 6 - Chou En-lai has become a target in the current campaign against "Water Margin" on the mainland, the World Daily News of Tokyo reported. The political campaign instigated by Mao Tse-tung describes the ancient Chinese novel as "capitulationist" and its hero, Sung Chiang, as a "traitor." The paper said there was mounting evidence that Chou was a victim of the campaign and that the "cultural revolutionary" faction led by Mao's wife, Chiang Ching, has won a preliminary victory in Peiping's power struggle.
OCTOBER 7 - Peng Chen, one of the Com munist big shots purged during the "cultural revolution," has surfaced again after living in oblivion for almost a decade, a Hongkong news paper reported. Tin Tin Yat Po quoted a traveler from the mainland as saying Peng had been seen at several different places. Peng was "mayor" of Peiping and a top lieutenant of deposed "president" Liu Shao-chi.
The Chinese Communists could "tear an arm or a leg" off the Soviet Union in a brief nuclear exchange but lacks the technology and supply facilities to fight a successful conventional war with its Communist rival, according to American and other military experts. Assessing Peiping strength after 10 years of tension with the Soviet Union, the experts believe that only a Soviet invasion could tip the balance in the Maoists' favor.
Peiping admitted as early as in 1967 that free Chinese agents on the Chinese mainland were "very active."
Chinese Communists stepped up their verbal war against the Soviet Union with two sharp criticisms of life there. A "New China News Agency" commentary claimed that social vices inherent in capitalist societies were rife in the Soviet Union, while an article in Red Flag charged that the Soviet Union was a better example of monopoly capitalism than the United States.
OCTOBER 8 - Maoists will shortly publish three standard editions of "Water Margin" as part of its campaign against "revisionism" and "capitulationism," the Japanese press reported from Peiping.
OCTOBER 9 - Wang Hung-wen, the young est member of the top Chinese Communist leader ship about whose future there has been speculation over the past few months, apparently still ranks third in the hierarchy after Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai. His name was listed in its usual third place in reports of the funeral of central committee member Chou Hsing.
Teng Hsiao-ping has confirmed that the health of Chou En-lai has deteriorated recently. Chou, 77, has been in the hospital more than 18 months.
Peiping's leadership is displaying its most in tense fear of Russian encirclement and "armed aggression" since the Peiping-Moscow quarrel began 15 years ago, Robert S. Elegant, Los Angeles Times staff writer, reported from Hongkong.
OCTOBER 10 - The "New China News Agency" disclosed that "vice premier" Chang Chun-chiao has been appointed director of the general political department of the "people's liberation army." The report indicated Chang had succeeded Li Teh-sheng, who was appointed commander of the Shenyang area of Manchuria in an important military shake-up in December, 1973.
The Chinese Communist army was involved in moving large quantities of goods in the port of Shanghai and in other parts of the city in September, according to a diplomatic source in Peiping.
The United States has urged Peiping "on humanitarian grounds" to permit Daniel Kelly, 34 year-old son of an American missionary, to emigrate to the United States despite disagreement over his nationality, a U.S. State Department spokesman said. Kelly was born in China of an American father and Chinese mother. He visited the U.S. liaison mission in Peiping in 1974 and was advised that under U.S. law he was a U.S. citizen. But Peiping advised Kelly and the U.S. mission he was considered by Peiping to be a Chinese Communist national.
OCTOBER 12 - On the eve of the arrival of a group of Chinese Communist diplomats, a Filipino columnist warned local Communists that their party did not become legal when relations with Peiping were established. Tendoro Valencia said that Malaysia, after signing a friendship treaty with the Chinese Communists, "found herself in even greater trouble with local Communists."
People's Daily accused Kremlin leaders of setting up military bases on Japan's four northern islands in seeking "hegemony" in the Asian and Pacific region.
OCTOBER 14 - "One of our missions given by the Chinese Communists upon our release is to spread the rumor in Taiwan and overseas that a dialogue between Taipei and Peiping has already been established," former agents of the Anti Communist National Salvation Army reported in Kinmen. Sixty ANSA agents and crewmen captured by the Chinese Communists while conducting commando operations on the mainland during the last 25 years were released.
Peiping indicated support for the leftist Fretilin party in Portuguese Timor's two-month-old civil' war.
Peiping will not be accepted by OPEC, said one of the most influential voices in international oil politics, Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Achmed Yamani.
OCTOBER 15 - Chou En-lai's "heart problems and other illnesses may be getting worse," according to Newsweek.
Peiping blasted the Soviet Union for retaining control of four islands which Japan held until World War II. The "New China News Agency" said Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko showed "insolence" when he dismissed Tokyo's demand for the return of Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashiri and Etorofu.
Peiping alleged that the Kremlin has carried out a new purge involving top officials in various republics of the Soviet Union. The "New China News Agency" said the presidents of the Presidiums of the Supreme Soviets of Armenia, Latvia and Ukraine had been replaced. Eleven vice presidencies of various Soviet republics also changed hands, it said.