Of all the hocus-pocuses which demagogues, and politicians, and statesmen on this side of the Iron Curtain are fond of using to win votes and to delude both the people and themselves, none is more frequently resorted to than the incantation of Oriental Titoism which, they believe, if repeated often enough, will produce a Chinese Tito in the person of either Mao Tse-tung or another man in his place. All British politicians without distinction of party affiliation look to the emergence of a Chinese Tito as the panacea for all contemporary ills on the international plane. Though Titoist dreamers are not so vocal in the United States as it is in the United Kingdom, there is an equally strong undercurrent of American political thinking predisposed to see the rise of an Oriental Tito as the automatic solution of all problems posed by International Communism. The most vociferous representative of this school of thought in America is Associate Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court who, in many an obiter dictum in and out of season, ever harps on his pet strategy of prying the Chinese Reds loose from Soviet Russia. One has a hunch that such views may be shared even by certain other important personages in Washington, D.C.
Two classic expositions of this Titoist dream in Great Britain and the United States are made, respectively, by Clement Attlee after his recent junket to the Communist-controlled Chinese mainland and by Harrison E. Salisbury, the New York Times Moscow correspondent, who has just returned to the United States after five years in the Soviet Union.
In a series of seven articles appearing in the South China Morning Post of Hongkong soon after his re-emergence from behind the Iron Curtain, the British Labor leader and ex-Prime Minister made much of differences between Soviet Russia and the puppet Peiping regime and, at one point, even mentioned the very name of Tito and openly compared him to Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai. First of all, let us see what differences, in Aulee’s view, there are between the Russian and the Chinese Reds. “There is one striking difference between the Russians and the Chinese (Communists) which impresses one at once in conversation,” says the “unrepentent” Attlee. “The Russian is always at pains to tell you that everything in Russia is not only equal to but superior to anything in the West. Any suggestion that we in Britain have something of which he is boasting is met with blank incredulity. Very rarely will it be admitted that everything is not yet perfect.” In contrast to the Russian, the Chinese Communists are, as Attlee sees it, “delightfully frank. They will show you their artistic treasures of ceramics and paintings dating back to the time when we were barbarians without any boasting. They will freely say: ‘We are a backward nation. We have a long way to go.’ They will show one what they are doing in the way of housing the workers but will say that this is only a beginning. So far from resenting criticism they will invite it. This makes conversation far more easy than with their northern neighbors.”
Having delivered himself of this paean of the Chinese Communists’ lovely temperament and character, Attlee goes on to dilate upon still other “differences in the Russian and the Chinese (Communist) setup.” Enlarging on this theme. Attlee takes pains to explain that “The Chinese (Communist) revolution was based on the peasantry for “there was no real urban proletariat. It has been built up on an alliance between the peasantry, the intelligentsia and the small capitalists. Here Chairman Mao Tse-tung showed his strength in refusing to follow slavishly the Russian model. For instance, the better-off farmers, unlike the kulaks in Russia, have not been liquidated. There has been no attempt as yet to do a way with the small trader and industrialist.” In his eagerness to sing the praises of the Chinese Reds, Attlee asserts that “in my view the Chinese (Communist) leaden are unlikely to make the same mistakes as the Russians. I think that their actual policy is likely to be more flexible than their theories. I have the impression that the Chinese Communists have more genuine idealists in its (sic!) ranks than have the Russians. The leaders are men who have made the revolution and who still have a clear recollection of life under the old regime: unlike the present generation of Russians, who might be termed career Communists.”
As it is not the intention of this article to correct Attlee’s assertions point by point, we do not propose to argue with him whether he is justified by facts in saying that the Chinese Reds have not liquidated the better-off farmers, or that there are more genuine idealists among the Chinese Communists than among the Russians. What we are trying to show in this paper is merely the general drift of Attlee’s argument that the Chinese Reds are in his view, different from and, in many ways, better than the Russians. He endeavors by devious means to prove his point, so that he may finally succeed in “prying the Chinese Reds loose from the Russians.” as Associate Justice William o. Douglas would say. It is with this purpose in mind that the British Labor leader declares with an air of finality: “Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai are revolutionists in their own right and like Tito strong characters. They must not be classed with the Communist stooges in the satellite countries.”
This final and authoritative pronouncement is intended to show that the Peiping regime is not a Russian satellite, that Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai are not Russian stooges, and that, on the contrary, they may very well become Oriental Titos.
So much for Clement Attlee, the British exponent of Oriental Titoism. Similarly, Harrison E. Salisbury, the New York Times Moscow correspondent. tells his readers in the seventh of a series of articles on Russia Re-Viewed that “signs of strain can be detected in Soviet Chinese relations,” that “there are plenty of small signs that Russia felt much more comfortable about the Chinese (Communists) when their direct contacts with the outside world were limited to relations with Moscow” and that “as far as the United States is concerned, these evidences of stress and strain in relations between Moscow and Peiping have only historic significance, since the hard line of American policy operates to keep these two big powers locked in each other’s arms for purposes of mutual defense.” (See The New York Times, September 25. 1954) But if the curious reader should examine Salisbury’s “evidences of stress and strain” minutely and carefully, he will be disappointed to find that they are confined exclusively to what is generally known as small talk. Such trivial matters as Chou En-lai’s use of English in his chat with Mikoyan and Kaganovich and his advice to the former to learn Chinese; Chou En-lai’s call for a toast to the ladies in response to a similar one offered, by one of the Russians, and his surprise to find no other ladies present except “two Chinese women, wives of diplomats, and two wives of Western diplomats” and that “none of the wives of the Russians was present,” - such incidents are too trivial to be called signs of strain” or “evidences of stress and strain.”
Nor are two other incidents which Salisbury has mentioned important enough to deserve being labelled “marks of coolness” or signs of “uneasiness or lack of confidence.” This is how he describes them:
“A remark made by Mr. Molotov to the British Laborite delegation when it passed through Moscow en route to China supports the impression that a certain uneasiness or lack of confidence exists between the two countries. Mr. Molotov expressed hope that none of the British had the intention of trying to improve Chinese-British relations at the expense of Chinese-Russian relations. If Mr. Molotov were completely confident of the granite-like firmness of the Russo-Chinese alliance, such a remark would hardly occur to him. A possible barometer of the temperature of Soviet-Chinese relations is the frequent months-long absences of the Chinese (Communist) Ambassador from Moscow. With such protocol-conscious powers this is almost a certain mark of coolness.”
It is indeed astonishing to find that such an outstanding correspondent of The New York Times as Harrison E. Salisbury should be so devoid of humor as to take an offhand and innocent joke so very seriously. If only the husband of a happily married couple can afford to joke with a friendly escort of his wife and tell him, when he is about to take her out for dinner, not to elope with her, similarly only a completely confident Molotov who is sure of the granite-like firmness of the Moscow-Peiping alliance can feel free to warn the British, in a humorous vein, not “to try to improve Chinese British relations at the expense of Chinese Russian relations.” If any evidence were needed of the unbreakable tie that binds Moscow and Peiping together in an indissoluble union, it is furnished by another incident reported by Harrison E. Salisbury himself in the fifth of the series of his articles. There, he relates that Nikita S. Khrushchev, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist party, “told the British Ambassador, Sir William Hayter, that the best international relations in the world were those between the Soviet Union and (Communist) China.” For once, a Communist has told the truth, and nothing but the truth.
As to the “frequent months-long absences of the Chinese (Communist) Ambassador from Moscow,” it is no more a mark of coolness between Moscow and Peiping than a businessman’s frequent absences from home is a mark of coolness between him and his dearly beloved wife. No one, not even a Communist puppet Ambassador, can be tied to the apron-strings of his master or mistress all the time.
The tendency of many politicians and writers in the Western countries to exaggerate imagined differences between Peiping and Moscow is the result of wishful thinking. Starting with the premise that a split between Moscow and Peiping is desirable and good for the democracies and wishing to see the fulfilment of their fond hopes, they try to detect and make out “differences,” “signs of strain,” or “evidences of stress and strain” on occasions or in circum stances where none exists. Clement Attlee and Harrison E. Salisbury furnish typical examples of wishful thinking; they illustrate the all too common weakness of making one’s wish father to one’s thought.
Though Mao Tse-tung himself has emphatically declared that the puppet Peiping regime would side with Soviet Russia through thick and thin under all circumstances and on all questions, the Titoist dreamers simply refuse to believe him. He made that unequivocal declaration as early as July 1, 1949, in his essay on Democratic Dictatorship, and his recent speech calling for “indivisible relations with the Soviet Union” delivered before the opening session of the puppet regime’s so-called First National People’s Congress on September 15 is but a reaffirmation of his former pledge to side with the USSR irrespective of whatever the rest of .he world may do. It is heartening to find that on the morrow of Mao’s latest statement, the leading newspaper of the United States, The New York Times, came out with an editorial entitled Mao Looks to Moscow, saying: “Those who are still looking hopefully for the emergence of the Chinese Tito can have small comfort from the remarks of Mao Tse-tung. Mao made it plain that he regarded the tie of Red China to the Soviet Union as the cornerstone of all Chinese (Communist) building. More than that, he held up the Soviet Union as the great mentor for the Chinese (Communists). (Red) China, he said, ‘must learn from Russia.’” The editor took the American people to task for having “made the mistake of not believing and not, taking seriously what our opponents said about their own plans, ambitions and desires. Mao has given us no excuse for repeating the mistake.”
Not only is the editor of The New York Times sagacious enough to see the folly of placing further faith in the possibility of splitting Moscow and Peiping, but even Aneurin Bevan, is now convinced of the impossibility of dividing the USSR and the Chinese Communist reo lime. Writing in the Asahi Shimbun of Tokyo, Japan, after his tour of the Communist-controlled Chinese mainland in the company of Clement Attlee and six other fellow British Laborites, this fiery left-wing Member of Parliament took issue with the wishful thinking of the Titoist dreamers. This is what he had to say:
“Some people look for evidence of disagreement and even of antagonism between the Soviet Union and New China. Naturally, their enemies would like to see this. To my mind this view is superficial. It ignores contemporary realities. Especially, it takes too little ac count of the fact that both countries have accomplished their revolutions under the inspiration of the same philosophy - Marxism. This gives their behavior a common stamp. The political leaders of the two countries are guided by the same political blueprints and use the same terminology. They are conscious of the same compulsions and are driving towards the same social destinations. This is particularly true of international policy. What Chairman Mao told us is repeated word for word by Communists throughout the world. It bore the stamp of a common origin and concerted plan. To have looked for anything else would have been to fail to appreciate, the deep intellectual affinities of Communists everywhere.”
These words, coming as they do from the lips of Aneurin Bevan who is widely known for his pro-Communist sympathies, should be read by all who still retain, in one way or another, some deep-rooted ideas of Oriental Titoism.
Mao Tse-tung’s own clear-cut pronouncement calling for unbreakable ties with Moscow, coupled with the matter-of-fact analysis of The New York Times and the observations of the pro-Communist British left-winger, should be more than sufficient to convince all Titoist dreamers that now is high time for them to wake up and look realities in the face. In the free world’s fight for the preservation of the essential freedoms of man against Communist encroachment, nothing is more real than lithe granite-like firmness” (to use Correspondent Salisbury’s phrase) of the Russian-Chinese Communist alliance.