Mao's Anti-Americanism
Publication Monthly (Chu Pan Yeh Kan), "Why the Chinese Communists Are Anti-American" by Nai Min —
In the five years from July 1, 1960, to June 30, 1965, the People's Daily, mouthpiece of the Peiping regime, published 1,821 editorials, of which 562 dealt with international affairs. Among these, 532 were anti-American.
Peiping's anti-Americanism goes back to the Korean War. At first, Peiping followed Moscow's policy toward the United States. To express his loyalty and gratitude to Stalin, Mao Tse-tung was willing to become the vanguard of the international revolutionary movement directed by the Kremlin. Thus he sent troops into the Korean War.
After the Korean War ended in July, 1953, the Peiping regime carried on anti-American activities to protest against U.S. defense of Taiwan. The Reds held more than 100,000 anti-U.S. demonstrations on the mainland in the 1950s. During the Communist bombardment of Kinmen (Quemoy) in 1958, the Mao regime assailed the United States for helping free Chinese troops defend the offshore islands and continued large-scale anti-American demonstrations.
Whenever an international problem arises, whether in Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, the Congo or Dominica, the Peiping regime denounces the United States and orders anti-American demonstrations into action. Anti-Americanism has almost become Peiping's way of life.
Peiping has at least three purposes in attacking the United States:
1. To divert the attention of the mainland people. Since the Peiping regime was established in 1949, the Chinese people on the mainland have never stopped their resistance. According to statistics of the Chinese Communist "ministry of public security", the number of anti-Communist incidents was 56,000 in 1958, 76,900 in 1959, 115,350 in 1960, and 249,012 in 1961.
Since 1961 the Chinese Reds have published no statistics. But we know anti-Communist activity has continued to increase. The Reds hope to substitute hatred of America for anti-Communism.
2. To exploit the people and tighten control. By maintaining that economic aid must be given to underdeveloped countries to establish a united front against the United States, the Chinese Communists have intensified economic exploitation of the mainland people. Their means include the notorious "people's communes'" and forced labor for students under the "part-study, part-work" educational system.
3. To stimulate the "revolutionary" sentiments of the people and mobilize them against the United States. The Peiping regime reiterates that "U.S. imperialism is the enemy of the peoples of China and the world". The Reds have spurred militia training with hate - America campaigns.
Internationally, the Peiping regime has tried to instigate the newly emerged countries of Asia and Africa to oppose the United States and revolt against their pro-Western governments. The Reds have also tried to launch the so-called "people's war" so as to seize the "intermediate regions" of Asia and Africa and encircle the United States. They have instigated American Negroes to oppose the U.S. government and encouraged American intellectuals to oppose the Vietnam war.
Recently the Communists have suffered serious setbacks in their international campaigns against the United States. Burundi, Dahomey, and the Central African Republic have severed diplomatic relations with Peiping.
Behind the Purge
Issues & Studies, monthly, "Peiping's Purge of Literature and the Arts of the Thirties," by Chen Chi-ying —
During the last two months, the Chinese Communists have waged a "great cultural revolution" against writers, journalists, educators, key cadres in local party organizations, and political commissars of military units with the express purpose of destroying Chinese culture and traditions. This shows Peiping's total distrust of intellectuals. Mao Tse-tung and his cohorts have shown the :same ruthlessness as the First Emperor (Shih Huang Ti), who burned books and buried intellectuals alive 2,000 years ago. Mao is more fanatical than Hitler or Stalin.
Mao's attempt to erase the Chinese cultural tradition and purge intellectuals will no doubt result in his own downfall. No ruler in Chinese history has ever succeeded in doing this. The culture and traditions of a country are formed gradually over a long period and cannot be changed overnight. A regime without the support of intellectuals is doomed to failure.
Why does the Peiping regime want to purge the literature and arts of the 1930s? What is the significance of this move? What will happen to intellectuals on the mainland?
Mao's attack has centered on Chou Yang, vice minister of culture and deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee. Chou is now held responsible for the literature and arts of the 1930s. But if there was really something wrong with the literature and arts of the 1930s, Chou should have been purged along with Hu Feng, Ting Ling, and Feng Hsueh-feng, all Communist writers, many years ago.
Mao thought his five literary rectification campaigns had subdued all writers and compelled them to turn out "proletarian literary works" to eulogize his regime and thinking. However, no writer with intelligence and self-respect can tolerate lies and deceptions for long. So after the purge of Hu Feng, Ting Ling, and others, literary circles on the Chinese mainland changed their writing style and produced short, abstract stories rather than long, realistic ones. Historical events and characters were employed to mock and attack socialism. Literary works of this style include: "Hai Jui's Memorial to the Throne" by Chou Hsin-fang, "Hai Jui Dismissed From Office" by Wu Han, "Hsueh Yao-huan" by Tien Han, "Li Hui-niang" by Meng Chao, "Night Chats at Yenshan" by Teng To, and "Annals of a Three-Family Village" by Wu Han, Teng To and Liao Mo-sha collectively. These writings were daring acts of resistance against Chinese Communist oppression.
Two other development deserve our attention. One is the decline of both "Hsiang Shen", the popular, humorous two-man dialogue of the stage, and of the modern drama. The "Hsiang Sheng", which was very popular in northern China, was suppressed because the Peiping regime disliked its irony. Modern plays are now less popular than Peiping and provincial Chinese opera because the Communist authorities have used drama to spread their propaganda.
Mao, who started as a guerrilla warfare strategist and a propagandist, will never relax his control of the armed forces and of literature and the arts. He himself reads the literary pages of newspapers and other literary articles. He must have been among the first to discover questionable passages in "Night Chats at Yenshan", "Hai Jui Dismissed From Office", "Annals of the Three-Family Village", and "Hsueh Yao-huan". In Chou Yang's name, he once gave orders to stop such writing but it continued.
From Yenan days, Chou Yang was the chief executor of Mao's literary policy and his mouthpiece. However, writers even developed anti-Maoism and wrote poignant and sarcastic pieces. Thus Chou Yang has been branded "an anti-Mao and anti-party leader" and "a great red umbrella covering all monsters" and punished.
Actually, when we say the writing of the 1930s we mean material produced from 1926 to about the time of the Mukden incident of September 18, 1932. Leftist literature and art flourished in Shanghai. One should not be confused by Chinese Communist terminology and led to think of Communist literature as true literature. When the Chinese Reds were devoting themselves to so-called "proletarian literature", there were such literary magazines as "New Moon", "Modern Age", and "Independence". Writers included Hu Shih, Hsu Chih-mo, Chen Yuan, Liang Shih-chiu, Shen Chung-wen, Chen Heng-chieh, Hsieh Pai-hsin, Lin Shu-hua, Su Hsueh-lin, and Huang Lu-ying. These still have some influence on contemporary literature. Some of them are under control of the Peiping regime. There were many outstanding writers living along the Yangtze and especially at Nanking and Wuhan cities. The leftist literature from the concessions of Shanghai did not truly represent the Chinese literature of the 1930s. But why should the Shanghai output now be denounced?
It is said that the leftist literary movement of the 1930s was not directed by Mao Tse-tung and therefore cannot be considered orthodox "proletarian literature". Only the "literature of workers, peasants and soldiers" created in Yenan after Mao's talks on literature and art at a forum there are considered orthodox. Because Mao wants literary workers to follow the literary line of Yenan days, he has had to sacrifice Chou Yang, who was the leader of the leftist literary movement in Shanghai.
It is also said that literary circles on the mainland have been defying "Mao-think" for a long time and prefer the leftist literature of the 1930s to that of the 1940s in Yenan. They have sometimes used the study of the literature of the 1930s to defy Mao. They were encouraged to do so because of Chou Yang's prestige and high position in the Chinese Communist regime. With the purge of Chou Yang, they are compelled to downgrade the leftist literature of the 1930s.
However, the main reason for Mao's opposition is to be found in such works as "Midnight" by Mao Tun, "Ni Huan-chih" by Yen Chin-chun, "Hua Kai Collections", "Erh Yi Collections" by Lu Hsun, "Torrents In Three Parts" by Pah Chin, "Village of the Eighth Moon" by Hsiao Chun, and "The Story of Hu Lan River" by Hsiao Hung. These are the crucial points:
1. Most of the works are laid in the period of the Northward Expedition (1926-28) and deal with the elimination of warlords and local despots, and voice of protests against imperialist aggression in China. They point up the Kuomintang's contributions to national development.
2. Most of these writings emphasize the bright side of human nature.
3. A clear class concept is entirely lacking. Elimination of warlords and local despots is not necessarily a Communist line.
4. Most of these works are of bourgeois ideology. The writers had no experience with Communism and retained a sentimental attachment to the old society.
What has happened on the Chinese mainland is not surprising but the more violent the suppression, the stronger the resistance will become. Little sparks can start a big fire. As a matter of fact, fires already are burning in many places on the mainland. An old Chinese proverb says water can float a boat but also sink it. Developments on the mainland tend to prove what I said more than 10 years ago: "Literature and the arts contributed to Mao's success. They will also contribute to his downfall."
After the Red Guards
The Political Review (Cheng Chi Ping Lun), fortnightly, "From 'Cultural Revolution to Red Guards", an editorial —
It is now clear that the "cultural revolution" on the Chinese mainland was launched by Mao Tse-tung in Shanghai. Why didn't he launch the revolution in Peiping? As revealed by Red Flag, the official magazine of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, it was because of Peiping control by such anti-Maoists as "mayor" Peng Chen, secretary of the Peiping Municipal Party Committee Teng Ho, and many others.
Previously Mao had made all the important decisions and was supported by his cadres. But recently he has had many failures at home and abroad - the general line, the big leap forward, the people's communes, aborting of the Afro-Asian Conference, diplomatic setbacks in Africa, and failures in Cuba and Indonesia. Chinese Communist cadres of various levels began to doubt his policies and even oppose them.
Mao began to feel his leadership was shaky and that, like Stalin, he would be denounced after his death. To extirpate the opposition and rebuild his prestige, he decided to carry out an extensive purge. However, because the resistance in Peiping was very strong, he had to go to areas controlled by Lin Piao. who had actively advocated Mao's thought after he became minister of national defense. Mao used Lin Piao's military strength to maintain his political position. At first he called the purge campaign a "socialist cultural revolution" but later renamed it the "proletarian cultural revolution". Actually this "cultural revolution" is only a pretext used by Mao in purging opponents and dissidents.
To rebuild his prestige, raise Lin Piao's position, reorganize the Politburo and other party agencies of various levels, and to legalize the "cultural revolution", Mao convened the 11th plenary session of the CCP Eighth Central Committee. After Lin Piao's troops moved into Peiping, Mao's opposition there disintegrated. Mao returned to the city and after 12 days of heated debate and support from Lin Piao's gun barrel, he emerged victorious. Liu Shao-chi was demoted and Lin Piao became Mao's heir apparent. Thus the "cultural revolution" is also a part of the internal struggle for power.
Why didn't Mao carry out the cultural purge through party organizations, as he has done several times in the past? It was because the Liu Shao-chi faction was cold toward the "cultural revolution" or even resisted. When teams enforcing the "cultural revolution" met resistance and obstruction, Mao had to use other instruments to carry out the campaign. Thus the Red Guards were organized.
Mao has used the Guards to purge the power faction in the party, maintain his leadership, and establish Lin Piao as a political authority. The actions he has taken appear harmful to the Peiping regime as a whole. The Communist Youth Corps has virtually disintegrated. Dissatisfaction within the party is growing. Those outside the party are resentmentful of Mao, Lin Piao, and their cohorts. If free Chinese troops from Taiwan launch a counteroffensive against the mainland and occupy one or two provinces, the mainland people will rise.
After Mao has restored his leadership and after Lin Piao has obtained political power, they will terminate all private ownership and move the people back to the early period of the communes. This will increase resentment and reduce industrial and agricultural production. Internationally, the Reds will intensify their campaigns against the United States and Soviet Russia. This phase is already under way, as can be seen in the activities of the Red Guards. It is probable that the Peiping regime will step up aid to North Vietnam and enter the Vietnam war sooner or later. With a bankrupt economy, Peiping's military defeat is inevitable.
Peace Move Fails
The Nation (Hsien Tai Kuo Chia), monthly, "An Illusion About Peace" by Yeh Shih-hsiu —
Early in August foreign ministers of Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines met in Bangkok to discuss cultural and economic matters. They also turned their attention to Vietnam, suggesting that although Hanoi has refused to enter into peace talks, it might reconsider if the negotiations were sponsored by Asian countries.
On August 8, the three countries jointly sent notes to 17 Asian countries and Communist regimes urging peaceful settlement of the Vietnam war. The 17 were Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Ceylon, Burma, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, the Republic of China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Indonesia, Outer Mongolia, Nepal, and the Peiping regime. The sponsoring countries expected to contact Soviet Russia and the United States, if enough favorable responses were received.
Pursuing this peace illusion, Philippine Foreign Minister Narciso Ramos came to Taipei after the conference. As pointed out in an Associated Press article, Ramos' mission was doomed to failure. The Republic of China could not support such a conference because it would never sit down with the Peiping regime. Besides, free China believes the West must win a decisive victory in Vietnam. Peiping also opposed the talks, as did Pakistan and Cambodia. The proposed peace conference is a dead issue.
Even if the Communists would participate in such a conference, peace could not be attained. If the Communists respected their conference promises, there would be no war in Vietnam today. The Vietnamese war results from Hanoi's infiltration and subversion of the south in violation of the Geneva agreement of 1954.