The Chinese Communists are now facing the real problem of severe food shortage. This may be evidenced by the urgent call made by the People's Daily on August 25 for faster development of agriculture and more production of food crops and the extensive aid-for-agriculture campaign launched prior to the autumn harvest.
On August 25, the paper in an editorial entitled "Vigorous Promotion of Agriculture and Food Output by the Whole Party and the Whole People" called on the comrades of the entire party and people of the entire nation to strive to develop agriculture faster and produce more food crops so as to better provide the people's livelihood.
At the very beginning, the editorial declared: "A new situation is now appearing on our country's agricultural front. In many provinces and autonomous regions, millions of people have reinforced the agricultural production front. Led by industry, the campaign to aid agriculture conducted by all trades and professions has reached an unprecedented scale. In all areas a large number of personnel and leading functionaries of leading organs of all levels have successively penetrated the frontline of agricultural production. In many hsien and communes, the leading organs have moved their staff officers to basic-level units of the communes to provide practical leadership over farm production. An upsurge is now taking form for the vigorous promotion of agriculture and food output by the whole party and the whole people."
The reasons for both call and campaign are quite obvious. There exists a severe food shortage on the mainland. Continued the editorial:
"Taking the need for food crops as an example, since all those who are capable of labor performance have in general participated in labor performance, while the workers and peasants are actively engaged in labor performance all the year round, the consumption of food has considerably increased.
"During the last three years, the population in the cities and areas of mines and plants has increased nearly 20 million, with a correspondingly large increase in industrial consumption of food crops. With the enormous program of capital construction in agriculture under way, the largest number of people participating in construction of water conservancy works during last winter and spring was more than 70 million persons. Their grain rations are usually higher than those of the ordinary peasants. All this has considerably increased the amount of food consumption."
Aside from population increase, three other factors aggravated the food problem on the mainland; an over-emphasis on the development of heavy industry at the expense of agriculture, an unfortunate series of natural calamities and the continuing shipments of food to "fraternal" countries.
Since the shipments of food to "fraternal" countries have propaganda advantages and natural calamities cannot be avoided, the only way left for the Peiping regime to increase food production is to speed up the development of agriculture.
Hence, under the label of taking agriculture as the foundation and industry the leading factor, the Chinese Communists launched the aid-to-agriculture campaign.
Could they succeed? In 1958, farmers all over the Chinese mainland were taken away from their farm duties to work on construction projects and to operate backyard steel furnaces. Putting farmers who know only how to raise pigs and corn and rice at work on industrial projects produced quite predictable results: their industrial product turned out to be worthless, while their untended crops were ruined.
Now the regime is using exactly the opposite tactic—rushing everyone into the country to work on the farms, while the industrial plants and other city enterprises are neglected. It is easy to predict the results of this foolish and impetuous move, too. The talents of skilled industrial workers, trained medical technicians and the like are being squandered by going down to the farms to perform unskilled labor; and their knowledge of farm techniques is so limited that they will prove more of a hindrance than a help to the farmers.
V-J Day
On September 3, gatherings and meetings were held in Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin, Lushun-Dairen in Northeast China and Changchiakow in North China to commemorate the 15th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance to Japan.
According to an English dispatch of the New China News Agency released on the same day, the commemorative ceremonies were attended by more than 500 people in Shenyang, over, 6,000 people in Changchun, more than 500 people in Harbin, some 700 people in Lushun-Dairen and more than 600 people in Changchiakow.
At the gathering in Shenyang, "Vice Mayor" Sung Huang brazenly praised the "great historical role" played by the Soviet people and the Soviet army during the anti-fascist war. He thanked them for the "liberation of Northeast China." Said he, "The Soviet Union's dispatch of troops to Northeast China accelerated the final collapse of Japanese fascism."
It is quite natural for the so-called vice mayor to thank the Soviet people and the Soviet army for the "liberation of Northeast China" because it was Soviet Russia that prevented the Chinese Government from taking over the administration of Northeast China following the Japanese surrender. It was also Soviet Russia that secretly handed over the capitulated Japanese arms and ammunition to the Chinese Communist rebels who sneaked into that area with the Soviet help.
Yet his praise of Soviet Russia's role in speeding up the final collapse of Japan at the end of World War II is a deliberate distortion. It is well established that aside from the heroic fighting put up by the Republic of China and the Allied Powers, it was the blast of the atomic bombs, not Soviet Russia's six-day "victory parade," that accelerated the Japanese capitulation.
The NCNA dispatch further reported that leading members of the local Communist party and "government" organizations and "people's Liberation Army" units in these cities laid wreaths at the Monument to the Soviet Martyrs. But how about the Chinese martyrs? The NCNA dispatch did not give them a single word coverage. They were cast into the shade by the Soviet martyrs. Both the Chinese Communists and the NCNA neglected them.
Havana Declaration
It has become a common practice for the Peiping regime to seize every opportunity to stir up anti-American feeling both at home and abroad. Thus on the occasion of the adoption of the Havana Declaration at the mass rally of 1,000,000 people in Havana on September 2, Ta-kung Pao of Peiping in a lengthy editorial On September 6 lauded the declaration as an outstanding contribution to the Latin American revolutionary cause by the Cuban people led by the "patriotic and democratic forces headed by Fidel Castro in cooperation with the Cuban People's Socialist Party."
Said the editorial: "The Havana Declaration is the product of a tooth for tooth struggle of the heroic Cuban people against U. S. imperialism and a direct retort to the San Jose Declaration adopted by the U. S. controlled OAS Foreign Ministers' Conference." The U. S. government made a huge effort and exerted wanton pressure on some Latin American states in order to bring about the San Jose Declaration. It hoped to use the San Jose declaration as a banner for intervention and aggression against Latin America. But it never expected that at the very appearance of the Havana Declaration, this black flag of the United States was at Once torn to pieces.
It is clear to all, the editorial went on, that the U. S.-made San Jose Declaration represents an attempt of U. S. imperialism, in the name of "inter-American unity" and by in venting a so-called Communist threat, to create a pretext for intervening against Cuba and for tightening its control of the Latin American states. The Havana Declaration, on the contrary, calls upon all Latin American people to unite among themselves and with the socialist countries and all peace-loving people of the world in firm opposition to their common enemy, U. S. imperialism, and fighting for their independence, democracy and freedom.
Hence, the editorial asserted: "The San Jose Declaration is a counterrevolutionary, interventionist and unjust declaration; the Havana Declaration is a revolutionary, anti-interventionist and just declaration."
"The Havana Declaration gives true expression to the common aspiration of the 200,000,000 Latin American people for liberation," the paper stressed. "The American continent does not belong to U. S. imperialism. The Latin American people must become the masters of their own countries. This is the correct conclusion the Havan Declaration has arrived at."
"The 'Havana Declaration' will contribute to the further unity of the peoples of Latin American countries and push forward the great national and democratic movement to a higher stage, thereby winning still greater victories. All schemes of intervention and aggression of U. S. imperialism will in the end run counter to its desire and hasten its own doom," the paper concluded.
Lures Afghanistan
Despite the recent speculation in the Western circles that there exists a split between Khrushchev and Mao over the issue of "war or peace," the Chinese Communists, like their Soviet "big brothers," are still peddling their favorite theme, the principle of peaceful co-existence.
With this purpose in mind, Chen Yi, "vice premier of the State Council and minister of foreign affairs of the People's Republic of China," left Peiping On August 15 to pay a friendly visit to Afghanistan and to attend the Afghan Independence Day celebrations On August 23.
During his six "unforgettable" days' stay in Kabul beginning August 21, Chen Yi expressed for many a time his hearty thanks to the Government of the Kingdom of Afghanistan for its kind invitation and warm hospitality accorded him. And On August 26, he signed a "Sino-Afghan Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Non-Aggression" with the Afghan Government.
Two days later, the People's Daily in a lengthy editorial entitled "Another Example of Peaceful Co-existence," hailed the treaty as "a new triumph of the five principles of peaceful co-existence and the Bandung spirit." The paper stressed that the treaty "is of major importance to the promotion of Afro-Asian solidarity and the maintenance of peace in Asia and the world."
Peaceful co-existence, according to the editorial, is obviously a timely expedient because the Asian' countries need it for the present. Said the editorial: "Following their liberation from imperialist oppression, the Asian countries need a peaceful environment for developing their own economy and freeing themselves from the poverty and backwardness which were imposed upon them by imperialist plunder and aggression. They need support in their struggle against imperialist aggression and for world peace."
And the real objective for the Chinese Communists to peddle peaceful co-existence is also clear. It is to exploit the anti-colonialist feeling in Asia, Africa and Latin America to the full so as to pave the way for their world communization.
"The national independence movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America is growing rapidly," continued the editorial. "However, the colonialist forces will not take their defeat lying down. They are resisting by all possible means. At present, U. S. imperialism is intensifying its intervention and aggression against the people of the Congo and Cuba."
"The people of Asia, Africa and Latin America, therefore, must strengthen their unity, support each other and persist in their struggle against colonialism and imperialism to win and preserve their national independence," the paper emphasized.