AUTOGRAPHIC LETTERS OF A HUNDRED DISTINGUISHED PERSONAGES OF THE MING AND CHING DYNASTIES (in Chinese)
By Tao Chin-pai and Ting Nieh-sheh (Ed.)
World Book Co. Taipai, 1954
Two vols. 20 + 484 + 4 pp. NT$280
The autographic letters contained in this collection are all reproduced from the original. Both the print and makeup are fine. This work was made possible by the generous act of Mr. Tao Chin-pai, to make his private collections available to the public. These letters were selected from the tens of hundreds of letters gathered by his father who had a special predilection for Chinese calligraphy. Many an expert took part in the selection. Dr. Hu Shih has written an introduction to the work.
For each of the more than a hundred persons whose letters are included there is provided a brief biographical sketch, which is very helpful to the reader. At the end of the work a note by Mr. Tao is added, explaining where the data have come from and how they have been selected and published. Certainly the work is a valuable contribution to the literature of Chinese culture.
The importance of autographic letters to historical research cannot be overestimated. They can be used to help establish facts and identify the points of view of the writers. Thus in his Introduction to the work Dr. Hu Shih declares:
"Letters are a primary source of biography, which in turn is a source of history. To preserve the autographs of our forefathers is to keep reliable materials for historians."
In support of his thesis Dr. Hu Shih singles out a specific case of his own and says:
"More than twenty years ago I bought sixteen chapters of The Red Chamber Dream annotated by Tsu Nien-Tsai, which was once in the library of Liu Tsu-chung (Ching Dynasty). Liu's seals and three brief notes he appended to the book are all there. Now I have had occasion to read all of Liu's autographic letters kept by Mr. Tao, verifying the many seals Liu affixed to them and comparing his handwriting. I am more than ever convinced that the abovementioned six chapters of The Red Chamber Dream now in my safekeeping is the authentic work he possessed and annotated."
The work under review can also be approached from the artistic point of view. As Chinese calligraphy is an art, the present collection is to all intents and purposes intended for the artist who has a taste for Chinese calligraphy. From the selected autographs of the hundred odd writers one can perceive a whole set of aesthetic qualities which represent the basic Chinese notions of beauty. Practically every well-written Chinese character, for instance, is a combination of strength, naturalness, harmony and what not. In regard to this, Mr. Chen Han-kwan in his Introduction to the work has the following to say:
“'An Wu' (a famous calligraphist of the Ching Dynasty) used to regard what we call the formal script as the style of monumental inscriptions and the cursive script as the style of ordinary handwriting. At the former even the best calligraphists often balked. With regard to the latter, people could do as they pleased and did not need to worry about ornamentation. As a consequence, the cursive script often had products of natural gifts, which even life-long work could not hope to achieve."
Moreover, Chinese calligraphy is good for the cultivation of the mind. As it is very largely the embodiment of the spirit and personality of the writer, one is likely to be influenced by it if one gets in touch with it frequently. Practically all the letters contained in the work under review were written by men of moral integrity. If one has occasion to read their autographs, one cannot fail to feel as though one were sitting face to face with them. When one associates with them long enough, one will readily assimilate their spirit.
I recall that at about seventeen I had the opportunity to read a copy of an autographic letter of one of the great patriots of the Ming Dynasty, Sze Ko-fa. It immeasurably added to my respect for him. I was so much impressed with it that during the past forty years I could not resist thinking of it whenever I thought of our great patriots in history. Although the present collection contains none of Sze Ko-fa's autographs, it does contain the letters of some of his contemporaries. The integrity of these people has been the pride of the nation.
According to an expert, none of the letters contained in this collection are spurious. This is a good thing. As the letters selected constitute only a small part of all the letters in the possession of Mr. Tao, it is to be hoped that the unpublished ones will be made available to the public in due course of time.
Incidentally, I wish to point out that though a large number of letters of leading personalities of the Republican era are scattered among the people, few of them have been collected and published in volumes. Even Dr. Sun Yat-sen's autographs have been published rather incompletely. Curiously enough, such distinguished scholars as Chang Tai-yen and Wu Chih-hui left no collections of their own behind, though they were all famous for calligraphy. The autographs of both scholars should be collected and published at an early date. - T. S. MAO
CONQUEST OF
By Mao Tse-tung.
Commentary By Sita Ram Gael.
Published by the Society for Defence of Freedom in Asia, .
March 1954. Rs. 2/-. 276 pp.
After being flooded with and bored to death by the tendencious literature turned out by Communist and fellow-travelling propaganda mills, it is refreshing for both the general public and the student of history to be presented with an objective and well-documented study, which gives them a totally different picture of the rise of Mao Tse-tung and of the conquest of the Chinese mainland by the Chinese Communist army than what is usually found in books written by British, American, or Indian "experts." It is so much the more refreshing, as the author, Mr. Sita Ram Goel, comes from a country ruled over by the notorious fence-sitting advocate of appeasement, Jawaharlal Nehru.
To dispel any possible misunderstandings, it must be pointed out first of all that the book under review is by no means from the pen of Mao Tse-tung, as its name would seem to suggest, although it does contain in Part II the English text of select portions of Mao's Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War and in Part III the English text of the first seven chapters of his China's New Democracy, which take up between them only 80 out of the 276 pages of the entire book. Part I, which contains Mr. Sita Ram Goel's Commentary, and Part IV, which contains his Conclusions, really form the core of his work.
Mr. Sita Ram Goel has done a significant4 service for the cause of freedom by his exposure of many falsehoods and distortions which have been assiduously propagated by Communists, fellow-travelers, and abettors and appeasers of International Communism and have passed for truths. Of the "many 'progressive' fairy tales about Red China, ... the two which enjoy the widest currency are," according to Mr. Sita Ram Goel, "(a) that what occurred in China during 1947-49 was a Revolution and (b) that Maoism is a creed to be distinguished from Stalinism and bound to blaze a new trail in the 'feudal-colonial' East." (p. 4)
In refutation of the first of these two fairy tales Mr. Sita Ram Goel has devoted one entire Section entitled "Not Revolution, But War", of his Commentary to a discussion of the difference between revolution and war and of the rise of the Chinese Communists to power through sheer force of arms. "A revolution is," points out Mr. Sita Ram Goel, "essentially a popular movement in which the masses are led, by leaders of their choice, against an established order. ... Revolution, however, has to be distinguished from military or palace coup d'etat on the one hand, and from a civil war on the other. The successful party in a coups d'etat or a civil war may not necessarily be popular. There are many examples in history where civil wars have been decided against popular wishes, purely on the strength of superior manpower or arms or military technique. There are also instances when the masses have remained neutral between the contestants and accepted whoever came on top." (p. 10) The case of in the late forties was one in which a civil war was fought between the National Government and the Communist rebel forces and won by the rebels. In spite of what "powerful Communist propaganda and Anglo-American journalism" had to say, "as a matter of fact, the fate of was decided," Mr. Sita Ram Goel observes, "by a clash of cold steel in which the helpless and downtrodden masses of had no choice except submission to the victorious army." (p. 11) By studying all the available evidence which is legion, one arrives at the conclusion that "the Chinese Communists have come to power as the result of a total war in which Chinese armies and not the Chinese people played the decisive role." (p. 14)
To refute the second of the above-mentioned fairy tales is the purpose of Mr. Sit a Ram Goel in taking the trouble to publish the English texts of portions of Mao Tse-tung's works in Parts II and III and subjecting them to a critical analysis. After a painstaking study of Mao's writings and other evidence, Mr. Sita Ram Goel sums up the situation by saying, "The legend of China's 'agrarian reformers'-who defied the Comintern, who created their own ideology as well as practical strategy and tactics, who struck their own independent path to victory and who are now taking China towards Socialism along a road unchartered by the earlier Marxist divines-has acquired a scriptural touch. But as we read the documents of Chinese Communism, we find an entirely different version. The Chinese Communists extol Comrade Stalin as 'the teacher of the working people of the whole world' and admire the Soviet Union as the perfect model which all countries should copy and emulate," (p. 5) The conclusion to which Mr. Sita Ram Goel is led by an examination of Mao's China's New Democracy is that "Mao Tse-tung's Communism is a carbon copy of orthodox Stalinism, 'promising' the same things to China as Stalin has 'achieved' in Russia." (p. 9)
To explode two other myths Mr. Sita Ram Goel has written Sections 4 and 5 of his Commentary entitled, respectively, "Communists Had Russian Help" and "The Myth of American Help," He shows that, on the one hand, "the Communists have built up a powerful myth about 'colossal American help' to Chiang Kai-shek," and that, on the other, "their fellow-travelers have made the general public believe that Russia kept strictly neutral in the last Chinese civil war till Mao Tse-tung came on top and that the Russians only recognized an established fact." "But," he goes on to say, "as we study the facts of the case, we find that these prevalent opinions are myths which have assumed the garb of truth in these days of high-powered propaganda," (p. 34) Without going in a short review into the details of an old story, it suffices just to quote one passage to show the handicaps the Chinese Government was laboring under with respect to American military aid. "Not only was there a delay in granting and shipping the military aid, but also the grant was too inadequate, especially because of the exorbitant prices charged by the United States Army. and were being supplied with the same arms at that very time and the prices charged were only ten percent of the listed costs. But the Chinese were made to pay 50 percent more than the commercial price of armaments. They could not obtain any armaments from private sources and the Army extracted a monopoly price." (p. 65) Then Mr. Sita Ram Goel gives us a table to show "the hiatus between various prices" as follows:
|
Item |
Listed Cost |
Price Paid by and |
Prices Charged to |
|
Bazookas |
$36.25 |
$3.65 |
$162.00 |
|
Rifles |
$51.00 |
$5.10 |
$ 51.00 |
|
Rifle Ammunition |
$45,55 |
$4.55 |
$ 85.00 |
|
Machine-Gun Ammunition |
$45.85 |
$4.58 |
$ 95.00 |
In Section 7 of his Commentary entitled "American 'Aid' in Reverse Gear," Mr. Sita Ram Goel has listed three "blunders " of American policy in the war and immediate post-war years. While we would hesitate to share the author's views on the campaign, which he puts at the head of his list, we wholeheartedly endorse what he has to say about the second "crime" and the third "blunder." "The second crime which America committed towards Nationlist China," in the author's judgment, "was the signing of the Yalta Agreement on February 11, 1945," (p. 84) This Yalta Agreement, according to Mr. Sita Ram Goel, "would go down in history as the blackest crime which America and Britain committed towards a loyal, trusted and friendly nation in selling her to imperialist tyranny." (p. 87) His comments on the last of the trio are equally pungent. "But the greatest blunder committed by American diplomats," in the view of our author, "was to treat the Communists, the fifth column of a foreign power, and the Nationalist Government of China on an equal footing, and to insist upon Chiang Kai-shek that he enter into an agreement with the Communists prior to his expecting any help from America. The Communists could starve Nationalist China of American help indefinitely by refusing to come to an understanding and use the interval for building their own military and diplomatic strength. The American motives in requiring unity with the Communists were first to mobilize war-effort against and then to prevent a civil war in . The road to hell is mostly paved with good intentions!" (pp. 88-89)
In Sections 8 and 9 entitled, respectively, "A Bunch of Soft-Brains" and "Pedlars of Falsehood," Mr. Sita Ram Goel quotes extensively from dispatches sent from Chungking to the State Department by the "three Johns," Service, Davies, and Ludden, to demonstrate how their "admiration for the Communists and contempt for the Kuomintang" (p. 118) influenced. American policy towards China and resulted in "the moral and political isolation of the Nationalist Government of China in the comity of nations and a boosting up of the Communist propaganda which could now quote even 'bourgeois,' 'imperialist' and 'reactionary' Americans to prove that the Communists represented 'progress' and that the Nationalists were So much 'cowdung!'" (pp. 128-129) Among the pedlars of falsehood Mr. Sita Ram Goel includes such notorious pro-Communist writers as Philip J. Jaffe, Owen Lattimore, Agnes Smedley, Edgar Snow, Anna Louis Strong, Theodore White, and Annalee Jacoby. They wrote endless books and articles to defame the Nationalist Government and describe the Chinese Communists as innocent agrarian reformers. But their activities "were not confined to merely writing the books. They occupied the desks in some of the most important newspapers and magazines in , and unlimited authority in the matter of reviewing books regarding and the and had important specialized magazines and periodicals at their disposal to propagate their anti-Kuomintang and pro-Communist opinions." (p. 139) The way these pro-Communist writers operated is this: they wrote glowing reviews of all the pro-Communist books about in all the leading literary papers, and ignored or denounced everyone of the anti-Communist books. "The same group of authors who wrote the pro-Communist books reviewed them among themselves. (p. 140) They formed, so to speak, a sort of mutual admiration society. The biggest instrument for Communist propaganda which the Communist Party had in the "was the American Council of the with a dozen nations as its member and very respectable names on its Board." (p. 141) Of Owen Lattimore, who once served as "adviser on the Far East to the U. S. State Department and editor, for many years, of Pacific Affairs, a quarterly journal published by the American Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations," (p. 137) Mr. Sita Ram Goel says that he "was a conscious and willing propagandist for Russia and Chinese Communism and always toed the party line from Moscow in his numerous writings." (p. 138) "The net result of all this Communist propaganda ...," concludes Mr. Sita Ram Goel, "was to raise a smoke-screen of lies against the Nationalist Government in and in favor of the Chinese Communists. That is why the 'progressives' like Roosevelt, and Acheson could betray the Chinese nation and sell into slavery to Joseph Stalin, without being opposed by a correctly informed public opinion," (p. 142) But that is by no means the end of the tale. As the author sagely observes, "There is, however, a moral law operating in human history No nation can escape the penalty. The Americans are paying the price in blood on the battlefields of -the price for having abused, insulted and betrayed a loyal and gallant ally." (p. 147)
In Part IV entitled "Conclusions," Mr. Sita Ram Gael points out how the "liberals and leftists in are repeating the follies of their American predecessors in , while discussing the problem of Communism in ." (p. 259) "There are," as he sees it, "two strands in the folly: (a) The belief that Communism is an ideology which attracts the poor people of India so long as they remain poor and that the Communist Party has, therefore, a legitimate and inevitable place in our democracy so long as we cannot solve our economic problems. (b) The belief that we can persuade Russia and (Communist) China to become friendly only if we go on paying handsome tributes to Communism and Communist tyrannies, confining our denunciations to the Communist Party of India." (p. 259)
"The first folly," suggests Mr. Sita Ram Goel, "can be detected by a little statistical effort, the counting of leading Communists and their fellow travelers. We shall find that almost all of them belong to the English educated, propertied and professional sections of the Indian bourgeoisie." (p. 259) "Everywhere we find the privileged upper-class fellow travelling with the Communists." Why such a strange phenomenon? "The only explanation," says our author, "is the power-is-virtue code of upper-class morality." (p. 261) These members of the Indian upper-class go fellow-travelling with the Communists out of a mixture of motives. First, "the Communists control a powerful press, directly and indirectly. Names which no one knew a week before suddenly start stealing headlines across the whole country. Rats are speedily built up into elephants, a transformation which no true rat will ever disown. Secondly, the Communist Party can take this fashionable gentry on free trips around the world. ... The fashionable upper class crowd is too self-indulgent to miss the opportunities of being around, wined, dined, flattered and presented to august assemblies and personages as 'representatives of progressive' opinion in India. All of them come back describing how they 'danced in the streets of ' or how they 'wept in the fraternal embrace of fighters for peace,' 'progress and freedom, all over the world.' And lastly this crowd has its eyes on the fishes and loaves of office which it believes it will get when the Communist Party comes to power, inevitably, as it did, in (Communist) . So they make the best of both the worlds." (p.261-262) This superb description of the Indian fellow travelers can be applied without the change of a single syllable to all fellow-travelers the world over. It would be amusing, were the results of such behavior not so pathetic.
As to the second folly "of shutting our eyes to and keeping quiet over Russo-Chinese aggression in India," (p. 265) Mr. Sita Ram Gael says that the Indian government and the Congress leadership "declare every day that they have no quarrel with Russia or (Communist) China or international Communism and that their fight is confined to the Communist Party of India. In fact, Communism is praised as a worthy ideal and and (Communist) are praised as 'Socialist' countries. Only the Communist Party of India is selected for abuse, as if it was an entity independent of , (Communist) and international Communism." (p. 266) But the outcome of such a contradictory policy can be disastrous. For as Mr. Sita Ram Goel rightly comments, "The net result of all this double-faced policy and double-talk is that Communism and Communist countries rise in the esteem of our masses and a moral atmosphere is created in which, the Communist Party not only functions very smoothly but makes rapid advances." (p. 226) This is no sermonising by an outsider meddling in Indian affairs, but straight talk from the mouth of an Indian patriot and lover of freedom.
The Society for Defence of Freedom in Asia, 12 Chowringhee Square, Calcutta, which publishes this book under review as the second of the World Communism Series (the first being World Conquest in Instalments by J. V. Stalin, Commentary by Sita Ram Gael), has also published an Inside Communist Slave-Empire Series comprising the following titles:
1. The Debate: Whom Shall We Believe?
2. Mind-Murder in Mao-Land.
3. Is Red with PeaSa1Jts' Blood.
4. Red Brother or Yellow Slave?
5. Communist Party of -A Study in Treason.
Besides these works which are all written by Mr. Sita Ram Goel, he has also written C. P. I. Conspires for Civil War - Analysis of a Secret Document in the Communism in India Series published by the Society for Defence of Freedom in .
The one regrettable fact which the sympathetic reviewer cannot refrain from mentioning is the large numbers of misprints scattered over almost every page. It is to be hoped that the publishers will pay more attention to proof reading in order to do full justice to a brilliant work from the able pen of Mr. Sita Ram Goel. - S. F. CHEN
COMMUNISM VERSUS INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Ann Van Wynen Thomas
136 pages including notes
Published by Southern Methodist
University Press, Dallas,
1953. $3.75
When Sir Winston Churchill flew from his fatherland to his motherland, as he fondly called the two Anglo-Saxon countries, to visit President Eisenhower late in June, 1954, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who accompanied him on the trip, gave a public, loud response to the Communist watchword "peaceful co-existence." As Eden's utterances were made at a time when the Korean problem was still deadlocked and the Indochinese situation was critical, they failed to impress the people of the free world but did give rise to a good deal of bewilderment.
Peaceful co-existence, if it should mean what it means, presupposes an international society subject to the rule of law, in which certain recognized standards of right and wrong apply to all members. An uneasy peace, founded on appeasement, on an armament race, or even on a balance of power, cannot be called peaceful co-existence. For there will be a time when the appeaser may find no one but himself to be the victim of appeasement, when the armament race may reach a point where the nations can no longer bear the heavy economic burden, and when the balance of power may be upset. When such a time comes, the nations which have hitherto indulged themselves in "peaceful co-existence" will find no peace but a very difficult existence in a lawless international society.
Since the end of World War II, Communism has so clearly manifested itself that there can no longer be any illusion about its peaceful intention. By treacherous, deceptive, and ruthless methods, the Soviet Union has controlled the Balkans, , , , , , the Chinese mainland, and a great part of . It has successfully planted its agents in , the , , and . It tried to conquer by open aggression but failed due to the determined resistance put up by the heroic Korean Government and people and the prom pt action taken by the United Nations. And yet after all these, Communists still have the temerity to talk of peaceful co-existence. And now echoes the call. Can there be any real peaceful co-existence?
Let us read Ann Van Wynen Thomas's fascinating book "Communism versus· International Law." This is a study of Communism from the approach of international law. The author, by analysing the ethical and moral nature of international law, has made it clear that international law comprises a system of legal relationships based on value standards of right and wrong, and that therefore it can work effectively only among nations which are willing to search for those basic ideas. Then the author gives an interesting description of the Communist concepts of international law. In the eyes of the Communists, so she quotes Lenin, morality can be only that which forms a means to annihilate the old world. The Communists see international law as significant only because they consider it ultimately superfluous. We who have had bitter experience with the Communists cannot but agree with the author. Such being the case, how can there be the peaceful co-existence so fondly referred to by ?
Those who, after hearing , feel confused in mind should read Mrs. Thomas's book and pay particular attention to the following passage:
"Russian Communists are profoundly convinced that Communism and democracy cannot live in the same world, and that sooner or later the two must grapple in a death struggle. With this in mind, the Communists view all international relations as a cooperation of the toiling masses in their common opposition to capitalism, and Communist international law becomes a provisional inter-class law which aims to further the interests of the organized national laboring classes in their common struggle for proletarian world supremacy. When this Soviet commonwealth of the world has been achieved, its law will be public law, not international law; therefore even the provisional Communist international law must then fall by the wayside as unnecessary.
"Further, as the Soviet Union represents a new social order which sets itself apart from other members of the international community and which denies the validity of exsiting international law, any cooperation between the democracies of the world and communist nations is merely political opportunism on the part of the Communists, to be used only as a means to ease the path of their revolutionary advance toward the Soviet one world."
The theory of peaceful co-existence also finds expression in the principle of universality of the United Nations. This principle has been a subject of heated debate in that international body. The reader will find this unequivocal answer from Mrs. Thomas:
"If the absence of the was the weakness of the League of Nations, the presence of is the weakness of the United Nations, for it is plain that there is no middle ground between the aspirations of democracy and the aspirations of communism. Either man lives for the state and is subordinated to it, or else the state exists for man. It is a fundamental principle of Marxism that no world peace is possible as long as capitalism and Western democracy exist. Who will conquer whom remains for the communists the great question of the day."
But Mrs. Thomas does not stop there. She has something constructive to offer, when she says:
"We then come to the only other apparent alternative, namely that sooner or later the answer to the problem of power in international law, the counter-balance to the egoism of power found in totalitarian regimes, will have to be found in theories that appeal to reason, in something spiritual-that is, in the revitalization, or refoundation, or re-establishment of the ethical and moral concepts and values which were the foundation stones of modern international law."
A whole chapter of the book is devoted to the question of the revitalization of ethical and moral bases. For the present, the free world and the United Nations would be better off if they should listen to Mrs. Thomas's counsel: "The free nations cannot start with the whole world. They must begin with those that think as they do about life and government, with those that have the same ideals, hopes and ideas."
The reader may come across a point or two on which he does not entirely agree with the author. For example, Mrs. Thomas regrets that there has been a limited acceptance of Franco's into the anti-Communist rank. The effect of such action, as she puts it, is to reduce seriously the ideological elements and to emphasize increasingly the struggles for power. This is an important argument which the author develops from her study of the ethical and moral nature of international law. However, there are other considerations. In the first place, though the moral concepts of international law of Franco's perhaps may not coincide entirely with those of the Western democracies, it is not impossible that there will be found a wide area of agreement. Secondly, in any anti-Communist cooperation, Spain will be found a steadier and more reliable ally than such neutralist and opportunist country as India. should therefore represent a greater moral force and enjoy higher respect in the free world.
On the whole, this is a fascinating book written in a lucid and arresting style. The reader will not stop reading it until he finishes it. Perhaps the only inconvenience the reader will find as he reads along is that the notes are placed at the end of the book and not at the foot of every relevant page. - HSUEH YU-CHI