By Tseng Hsiao.
Published Under the Auspices of The Chinese Research Institute of Land Economics,
Taipei, Taiwan, China.
953. 80 pages.
In view of the importance which is being attached to land reform as an effective means to check Communist propaganda, this booklet by a serious student and enthusiastic advocate of land reform has appeared at a most opportune moment. As Free China is implementing Dr. Sun Yat-sen's land-to-the-tiller program in order to achieve his ideal of the equalization of land rights, there is the more reason for the reading public to welcome the publication of a work which, as the author says in the Preface, "includes an account of the Chinese land reform movement as well as a statement of the basic ideas and principal aims of land reform in general." (p. 3) This pamphlet was originally written as a paper and read before the annual conference of the Chinese Land Reform Association in 1951. But in presenting it in the form of an English translation, a new chapter on "Land Reform in Taiwan" has been added to bring the story up to date.
In the first chapter on "The Theoretical Basis of Land Reform", Mr. Hsiao undertakes to contrast Communism with capitalism and tells us that "the basic theories of land reformers are both non-Communistic and non-capitalistic. For the same reason, they are anti-Communist on the one hand and anti-capitalist on the other." (p. 10) The land reformers are anti-Communist, because, according to our author, "Communism denies the existence of all human personality" (p. 11); and they are anti-capitalist, because in capitalist society "there has arisen economic and social inequality: on the one hand, the capitalists who control the factors of production have become economic exploiters and a specially privileged social caste; on the other hand, the great masses have been turned into objects of exploitation with no other freedom except the freedom to starve, There can be no justice in such a society." (p. 12) Such being the case, says Mr. Hsiao, "land reformers stand out unmistakably for freedom of the human personality and social justice," (p. 11) To be more specific, they "hold that all men should share in the equal enjoyment of land as a natural gift, that each individual should be free to choose how to make use of his own labor to the best advantage and enjoy its fruits, that capital be utilized in such way as to encourage individual incentive and to safeguard popular interests at one and the same time, and that the greater part of its returns should be made available for the benefit of all by means of the income tax. It is through the instrumentality of these measures that freedom of the human personality and social justice can be genuinely assured." (p. 13)
In the second chapter on "Lines of Approach to Land Reform," Mr. Hsiao lists several guiding principles of land reform (pp. 30.32) and examines the dispute between advocates of land nationalization and those of land tenure reform. On the relative merits of these two schools of thought, our author's views are crystal clear, as may be seen from this rather sardonic comment: "The first country to put land nationalization into actual practice was paradoxically Soviet Russia. But if the policy has to be associated with and subordinated to a Communist regime before it can be carried out, it would be contrary to the principles of land reform." (pp. 33.34) The same opposition to land nationalization is manifest when, in analyzing, Dr. Sun Yat-sen's theory of the equalization of land rights, Mr. Hsiao declares that the Father of the Chinese Republic "never thought of the equalization of land rights in term of nationalization." (pp. 41-42) Dr. Sun's exposition of the equalization of land rights as enunciated by him for the first time at far back as 1905 is worth quoting:
"Equalization of Land Rights: The benefits of civilization ought to be equally enjoyed by all citizens. The economic organization of society should be reformed by assessing the values of all lands throughout the whole country. The original owner should be allowed the right to keep the current value of his land for himself, but any increase in such values resulting from social improvement and progress after the Revolution should go to the State to be enjoyed by the people in common. We shall establish a socialized State to provide for the needs of all, so that no one may be destitute," (p. 40) The actual methods to be employed for the realization of this ideal which were worked out by Dr. Sun some time later include: (a) Assessment of land values, (b) Taxation according to the declared values, (c) Optional purchase at the declared values, and (d) Public enjoyment of future increments. (pp. 42-43)
In the third chapter on "The Land Reform Movement in China: Its Origins and Development," Mr. Hsiao gives us an account of the principles and objectives of the Kuomintang in relation to land reform and describes the activities of the Chinese Land Economics Association and the Chinese Land Reform Association for the realization of those principles and objectives. We are told by the author, in his capacity as the founder of both Associations, that "the Chinese Land Economics Association has been, in the last twenty years, the prime mover in the Chinese land reform movement" (p. 60), and that "The ultimate aim of the Chinese Land Reform Association is the establishment of an ideal China, a rich and prosperous country which enjoys national independence, political democracy, and economic equality." (pp. 61-62) The three fundamental principles which the Chinese Land Reform Association proclaimed in 1947 and the 8-point program which it formulated on the basis of those principles as well as the "Land Reform Project" which it issued in 1948 are described item by item (pp. 62-68) for the benefit of those interested in details.
The fourth and last chapter on “Land Reform in Taiwan" is a resume of the principal results which the Chinese Government has achieved in rent reduction and the sale of public lands and of what it expects to achieve by way of giving land to the tiller, a program which is to be implemented in the current year.
In view of the Chinese Communist's attempts to deceive the Chinese people with false promises of "land reform" and of British and American fellow-travellers' portrayal of the Chinese Reds as “agrarian reformers,” Mr. Hsiao's comments on this aspect of the problem are apropos and highly enlightening. To quote:
"Paradoxically enough, the Chinese Communists are also advocating land reform: What they mean by that term, however, is not an end in itself but merely a step in the direction of land nationalization. They begin by distributing small pieces of land to the people who, in due course of time, will find that it is too small to keep themselves alive with and will, therefore, have to bow to the inevitable and, in the end, accept the policy of land nationalization." (p. 69)
Both academic students of the subject and policy-makers of Governments in all free nations of the world should seriously heed the warning which Mr. Hsiao has taken pains to issue on this particular point. "Be it noted in this connection," says he, "that the current policy of land distribution adopted by the Chinese Communists is but a temporary measure, which will eventually lead to ultimate nationalization. It would be a grave error to imagine that they do not believe in land nationalization as the final objective:” (p. 35)
- Durham S. F. Chen
OUT OF RED CHINA
By Liu Shaw-tong
Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York,
1953, 269 pages.
This is a must for pinkos, fellow-travelers, and all those that think they can do business with the Communists. Here was a keen, impressionable young man who was about to graduate from the National Peking University when the Reds came over from Manchuria and took the city of Peiping. Thrown upon his own resources, Liu joined the Communist Southward Working Group to make a living. He does not say as much in his book, but there is no question that when he joined the outfit he was full of goodwill toward the Communist regime that had just established itself in Peiping. What he saw in the months that followed filled him with such illusions and horror that he finally made an escape to freedom and came to Free China to stay.
In writing about his escapade, Liu lays bare a full bag of tricks that the Communists use to deceive the world. The first thing he tells is the Communists' favorite trick of using innocent, well-sounding names to deceive the public. The name Southward Working Group was a fraud. It was an organization to trap young intellectuals to join the army. Practically all the members found out too late to leave, or allowed to leave, and with but few exceptions the whole lot was shipped to the front to work in different army units.
Among the few exceptions referred to above was one whose seventy-year-old father and fifty-eight-year-old mother were dispossessed of their home and farm in the land reform movement and came to Peiping with the hope to be supported by their only son in the Southward Working Group. He wanted to leave the group so that he might get a higher-paying job to support his parents, who had been impoverished that they had to pawn his mother's burial dress to get something to eat. The Woman Commissar told him that a "re-educated" person should not be burdened with such old concepts as filial piety, and he began to understand that quitting the Revolution (the Communists have up to this date called themselves revolutionaries) was not as easy as joining it. Instead of asking to leave, he tried to work extra hard in order to persuade the organization to give him some extra rice--the soldier a supplementary family-subsistance ration--for his old parents, or to place them in an almshouse. But the Woman Commissar laughed in his face for asking for the “People's” reward when he had not yet gained any merit in the revolution. The last time he went to see the Woman Commissar his patience snapped and he furiously, asked her if she was a real daughter of her parents, or was she a monster spawned by a political machine. This got him into trouble. He was put on a public trial, during which he was found guilty and sent to the Northeast to “study” and his parents were sent back to their home town for trial. He was not heard any more.
Liu was assigned to work as one of the reporters. From the very beginning he was made to understand that objectivity in reporting was an old-style concept. To be the “People's”, correspondent, one must adopt the viewpoint of the property-less class, the viewpoint of materialism, and argumentative, methods of writing. In short, news reports were correct only if they agreed with the opinions of the Party chiefs and did not have to be honest. Liu's experiences showed that no honest reports were passed by the Party chiefs.
Another revelation Liu made in his book is the favorite Communist trick of making people profess they wanted to do what the Communist wanted them to do. In their trip Southward, Liu and his colleagues found that for a stretch of 130 miles between Loho and Sinyang the railroad was blown up by the guerrillas. As the organization wanted them to move south as soon as possible to be in time to take over the territory the Red army had occupied, the chief staff officer called a meeting in which he said that train riding was an old-society custom and that they were allowed to ride south only because they were considered still too weak and backward to embrace the new principle. As the organization considered them strong and progressive enough, he wished they would undertake the 130-mile walk in four days, an average of more than thirty miles a day. As the road was beset with guerrillas, he was in reality asking them to risk their lives by undertaking the march. But led by the agitators, they unanimously volunteered to march.
Liu had constant opportunities to meet and speak to Russians working for the Chinese Communists, about whom he made some biting remarks as follows:
The common people in Northeastern China had indeed had too much experience with the Russians. Northeastern women would quiver with fear, and some with anger at hateful memories whenever the lao mao chu (old fellow with much hair) was mentioned. Children would run away when they saw the tah bih chu (old fellow with big nose) coming toward them. Northeastern soldiers had been greatly displeased when the governmental policy of looking to the Soviet Union for guidance was made public. Although the Northeastern prejudice had spread to other parts of China, the rulers managed to wipe out among staff officers and soldiers the use of the disrespectful titles, lao mao chu and tah bilh chu, and to substitute in their place first the term, "Soviet Friends," and then, "International Friends."
Elsewhere in his book, Liu noted the fact that while the Russians and the Chinese Communists were anti-American, neither the Russians nor their Chinese puppets would show the least hesitation to use American-made products. “And among long-time comrades,” he said, "the practice was totally different from the theory: if you offered a long-time comrade two pens, one made in the Soviet Union and the other an American Parker 51, and told him he could have only one of the two, his choice would indicate that the anti-American study had, alas! made no impression on him." The way the writer described the Russian-made trucks is a disgrace to a nation that claims to be the first in everything.
For an outsider, Liu rose pretty rapidly in the Propaganda Department of the Wuhan administration. But he got into trouble with a highly placed woman comrade who was out for his skin. An opportunity came to him during the absence of his chief to the country to forge a military pass for him to make his escape. When he was safely out of the cluthches of the Communists, he had this question to ask: "Can my near-delirium of joy be understood by people who take joy pretty much for granted as a natural part of existence, people who have never lived under Communist rule, never felt Communist power suck humanity out of their insides to leave an empty shell which looks human but is not?"
-Edward Y. K. Kwong
ROOSEVELT AND THE RUSSIANS
The Yalta Conference
By Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.
Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1949 Garden City,
New York
xvi + 367 pages
A distinguished U.S. Senator struck a note of sober warning when he was recently reported to have declared that the U. S. should take a refresher course on Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, before she would attend a Big Power conference. That is a good sentiment. Of the three historic conferences, the one held at Yalta was undoubtedly the most important. It was the first time that Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, reached basic agreements on post-war problems as distinct from mere settlements of war aims. At Teheran, a number of non-military questions had been broached, but no fundamental settlement was attempted. At Potsdam, for all their success in reaching some major agreements, the Big Three had already begun to fall apart: Indeed, the Yalta Conference marked the high tide of the collaboration of the three war leaders, which was of the most decisive and far-reaching political consequence.
It is understandable that Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. should write this book in defense of the Yalta Conference. He was present at the Conference as U.S. Secretary of State. As the chief adviser to President Roosevelt, he played a considerable part in making the Conference possible. So, while writing this book, Mr. Stettinius was honest enough to say: “A deep respect for the memory of President Roosevelt and unshaken faith in the rightness of his foreign policy have impelled me to write this book about the Yalta Conference.”(Foreword)
The value of this book lies in the fact that it reflects the official views of the Roosevelt administration in regard to the Yalta Conference. It illuminates Roosevelt's war policy which marked an epoch in world history, the epoch of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam. There are inevitable biases, of course. It is just those biases which help explain Roosevelt's views about the Russians. "I firmly believe," says Mr. Stettinius, "that when all the evidence is in and when the Conference is seen in its proper perspective Yalta will become a symbol--not of appeasement, but of a wise and courageous attempt by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to set the world on the road to lasting peace." (Foreword) What a contrast to the generally accepted concept of Yalta!
Appeasement, as distinguished from peace, acquired its particular meaning at the Munich deal of September 29, 1938. Chamberlain, joined by Daladier and Mussolini, "appeased" Hitler by agreeing to his snatching a slice of land from Czechoslovakia. In return, Hitler promised not to seek any more territory. That took place outside the League of Nations, though the League should of right deal with the matter by virtue of its duties and obligations under the Covenant. The deal was hailed for the moment as a great success in bringing "peace in our time". Many people heaved a long sigh of relief, since they felt the threat of war was over. However, subsequent events turned out otherwise. On March 15, 1939. Hitler took additional Czech territory. A few days later, he occupied Memel, Lithuania. Despite the belated reversal of British policy in the form of a guarantee of Polish integrity, Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. Thereupon, World War II broke out. Appeasement, after all, could not bring peace. It could only whet the appetite of the aggressor.
The Yalta Conference met from February 4 to 11, 1945. In the course of the eight days, the Big Three reached a number of agreements concerning the World Organization, Germany, Poland, the Far East, etc. Each agreement has its own merits and demerits. The most controversial is the agreement relative to the Far East. This agreement was made on the last day of the Conference, and it was kept so secret that even James F. Byrnes who sat at the conference table until February 10 did not know of it at the moment. The document was kept locked in the President's safe at the White House arid it was not until some time after Mr. Byrnes became Secretary of State in July, 1945 that a news story from Moscow caused him to inquire and learn of the full text. By the agreement the Soviet Union obtained the Kurile Islands and all the privileges Czarist Russia had enjoyed before the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, viz.: (a) southern Sakhalin, (b) the Russian-controlled "free port" of Dairen and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base, and (c) Soviet-Chinese joint operation of railways in Manchuria with Russian preeminent interests safeguarded. As this arrangement involved the loss of Chinese interests, Roosevelt undertook to obtain China's concurrence in the matter.
Mr. Stettinius argues that the Soviet Union made greater concessions at Yalta to U.S. and Great Britain than were made to the Soviets. He claims that consequently the agreement reached were, on the whole, a diplomatic triumph for the U. S. and Great Britain. In support of his argument, he tries to make balance sheet of the Conference. He calls the whole thing realism rather than appeasement. (pp.295-307)
We need not take the trouble, as with Stettinius, to count the number of concessions made by each side at Yalta and then decide whether or not it was appeasement. That is irrelevant to the question. By Munich standards, appeasement has roughly four implications: First, the parties agree to a compromise by surrendering something not of their own, but of another country. Genuine concessions made at their own expense do not amount to appeasement. Secondly, the country so affected has no choice but to succumb to the pressure of power politics. As it does not participate in the negotiations, its concurrence is necessarily obtained under compulsion. Thirdly, the deal is made by a few big powers without regard to the world organization such as the League of Nations or the United Nations. It is thus a challenge to the authority of the world organization. Fourthly, concessions made are usually used as a stepping-stone to fun her aggrandizement. Instead of satisfying the aggressor, they make him more greedy.
The Far Eastern agreement reached at Yalta clearly falls within the scope of the above definition. Despite Stettinius's argument to the contrary, Yalta bore a close resemblance to Munich. If Munich was a symbol of appeasement in Europe" Yalta was its counterpart in Asia. There is no question about that. In LIFE for September 6, 1948, Mr. William C. Bullitt wrote:
"At Yalta in the Crimea, on Feb. 4, 1945, the Soviet dictator welcomed the weary President. Roosevelt, indeed, was more than tired. He was ill. Little was left of the physical and mental vigor that had been his when he entered the White House in 1933. Frequently he had difficulty in formulating his thoughts, and greater difficulty in expressing them consecutively. But he still held to his determination to appease Stalin."
In explanation of the Yalta decisions, Stettinius singles out the military situation as the decisive factor. Roosevelt had with him at Yalta the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had great faith in them and relied upon them whole· heartedly; Their insistent advice was that Soviet Russia had to be brought into war against Japan soon after Germany's collapse. Roosevelt acted upon that advice when he signed the Far Eastern agreement. (pp. 304.305) However, postwar studies have all pointed to the conclusion that Roosevelt was ill-informed by his military, advisers. At the time of Yalta, Japan was already on the point of collapse-by bombing and blockade. Roosevelt did not know of that. The intelligence reports on which Roosevelt based his judgment were misleading and pessimistic. In its editorial of September 9, 1948, the Washington Post commented: "Certainly, the Chiefs of Staff made a blunder to advise Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta that Japan would last 18 months after V E Day. Our military men underrated Japan at the beginning of the war, then overrated it, and refused to see the patent fact, obvious to the Navy, that Japan was through even while the brass hats were meeting at Yalta."
Nor was that all. Over and above the military miscalculation, there was a basic political fallacy which underlay Roosevelt's war philosophy in relation to the Soviet Union. Roosevelt sincerely believed that Stalin had abandoned his policy of world conquest with the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. He imagined that he could get along with Stalin and accomplish good results. "The President was confident," says Stettinius, "that the Soviet Union had decided to take its place in the United Nations family as a good citizen." (p.307) Naturally, Stettinius" shared Roosevelt's views:
Shortly after his return from the Conference Stettinius told a bipartisan group of senators that "the atmosphere at Yalta was not one of bickering, that Stalin and his government apparently had made up their minds to take "their place among the United Nations." (p. 306).
It is clear now, and it should have been patent, then, that international Communism can only change its tactics, but not its ultimate aim. A study of Marxian literature and its interpretation and applications by Lenin and Stalin should have convinced an unbiased mind of that plain fact. Unfortunately, Roosevelt did not have adequate knowledge about Soviet Communism. He became a victim of his own fallacy and played into Soviet hands. We must not suppose that Roosevelt went to Yalta by casual inspiration. He had had the intention to come to terms with Stalin for a long time.
Yalta was only the outcome of many years of efforts, Mr. Stettinius writes:
"The Yalta Conference was the culmination, in many respects, of long and patient efforts, dating back to President Roosevelt's first term, to find some basis for a new international understanding with Russia. It was not until eight years after diplomatic relations had been restored, and after the Soviet Union had been attacked by Germany on June 22, 1941 that important steps toward effective cooperation took place between the two nations." (pp. 6.7)
In the light of the foregoing, there can be little doubt that Yalta has gone down in history as a symbol of appeasement. China was sold out there by Roosevelt and Churchill to appease Stalin. Being a typical selfish Briton, Churchill was beneath criticism. But Roosevelt, by agreeing to betray China, allowed a slur to be cast on the good name of the United States, this book notwithstanding. If there is any lesson that can be learned from this book, it is that an international underhand dealing like Yalta should never occur again.
-Hsiao Tso-liang
What a Roast Can Do
Ku Jung was invited to a barbecue party at Lo Yong. He discovered the man at the grill was gloating on the sizzling meat, so he gave his own share to him. The other guests looked on him with scorn. Jung said, "Is it fair, gentlemen, that the man who stands beside the grill for the whole day should not be given a taste of the food?" Some time later, he crossed the river as a refugee; and whenever he was in distress, there was one who always hedged him by hanging around closely. Upon investigation, that man was found to be no other than the man at the grill.
-Shih Sho Hsin Yu