How could a 73-year-old servant of Chinese Communism and one of its most prolific writers slap himself in the face and attest that nothing he has written is socialistically acceptable and that the whole of his output should be burned? How could he offer to plunge his body into "mud or oil or blood" and then join Comrade Mao Tse-tung, whose teachings he had "failed to understand" after writing about them for a quarter century, in "throwing grenades at the imperialists"?
The subject is none other than Kuo Mo-jo, sometimes known as Peiping's "court jester" and until recently Mao Tse-tung's "close friend" and most faithful source of Mao literary testimonials. As Peiping's new purge of intellectuals reached a crescendo, Kuo stood before the Standing Committee of the "Chinese People's Congress", of which he is one of 14 vice chairmen, and tore his life's work and himself to pieces. That was April 14. In the weeks since, students of Chinese Communism have studied the Kuo case and the record to discover the reasons and the implications. These are some of the speculations and the conclusions:
—Kuo was trying to save his neck, debasing himself in an effort to stay the hand of his cold-blooded executioners.
—He was carrying out orders, pretending to be a martyr—but really acting the guinea pig—to persuade other mainland intellectuals of the dire consequences of deviation from the party line.
—The "boneless clown" (as he is called by anti-Communists) was drifting with 'the tides of a new power struggle in Peiping "just like foam", which happens to be the meaning of his given name.
Self-denigration did not result in Kuo's disappearance. He attended the May Day celebration in Szechwan, his home province, and received foreign visitors in Peiping a few days later. He still was holding these important posts, in addition to the "People's Congress" vice presidency:
* President, "Chinese Academy of Sciences" (since October, 1949).
* Chairman, "All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles" (since October, 1949).
* Chairman, "Chinese People's Committee for World Peace" (since October, 1950).
* Chairman, "Asian Solidarity Development" (since March, 1956).
* Vice chairman, "National Committee, People's Political Consultative Conference" (since September, 1949).
Medical Training
Kuo was educated in medicine at the Kyushu Imperial University in Japan but later turned to poetry, the writing of novels and plays, and to archaeology and politics. After serving as dean of the College of Arts at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Canton, he was appointed deputy director of the Political Training Department at the headquarters of the National Revolutionary Forces. Turning traitor, he took part in the Communist-inspired Nanchang Revolution of 1927. When the revolution failed, he escaped to Japan and lived there for 10 years. At the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan, Kuo was permitted to return to China and given a post under the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). As director of propaganda and cultural programs for the Political Training Board of the National Military Council during the war years, Kuo must have been helping prepare for the Communist bid for power.
His postwar rise as a fellow traveler of Communism was rapid. He visited Russia at the Invitation of the Soviet Academy of Science in 1945, acted as a "non-partisan" delegate to the Kuomintang-Chinese Communist Party Political Conference in 1946 and 1947, and headed the CCP delegation to the April, 1949, Warsaw convention of the World Peace Council. When the Communists usurped power on the Chinese mainland later in 1949. Kuo was appointed "vice premier" and concurrently chairman of the "Committee of Cultural and Educational Affairs, Government Administration Council".
Kuo has always been quick at turning his coat. He used to compare Stalin to the sun, received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1951, and then praised Khrushchev while Mao was still on good terms with the Soviet leader. He was apologist for Mao's inferior poetry. He survived countless rectification movements, struggles, and debates. But this time he had to do more than turn his coat; he literally shed his skin.
Up to early May, when Mao Tse-tung emerged after an absence of six months, speculation had been widespread that the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party was either seriously ill or dead. There were also indications of a fierce power struggle in preparation for the post-Mao era. The two main factions were said to be those of Liu Shao-chi, the "head of state" since 1959, and of "premier" Chou En-lai.
Arcane Structure
Nobody was sure who was leading the race. Peiping always keeps the inner workings of the power structure a secret. The secondary level of leadership is not permitted to know what the hierarchy is doing or intends. A new light was shed on the guessing game when Kuo's self-criticism was published April 28 in Kwangming Jih Pao, the Peiping daily for intellectuals. In the eyes of Liu Shao-chi and his followers, Kuo has always stood on the side of Chou En-lai. The pressure leading to Kuo's abasement could not have come from the Chou side. Other evidence indicates Liu is better equipped than Chou for the power struggle.
Kuo is not the only Chou supporter to be attacked. Others close to Chou to come under criticism are Teng To, deputy director of the New China News Agency and a party committee member of Peiping city, and Liao Mo-sha, head of the Peiping "department of united front activities". For four years these two had joined Peiping "deputy mayor" Wu Han in publishing a series of anti-party articles under the pen name of Wu Nan-shing. But the attacks against them did not start until a few months ago when Mao Tse-tung was out of sight and the purge of intellectuals was spreading.
The "cultural debate" started late last year, almost coinciding with the "general election" of "people's representatives" on district, county, and township levels throughout the mainland. The security network which Liu Shao-chi has built since he became "president" in 1959 has a big role in the election, which is really a phase of class struggle. The last election of this nature took half a year to complete in 1953. The current voting-apparently staged to condition the mainland populace for a new era is said to have progressed faster. At the time of Kuo's self-criticism, most elections had been completed. In general, a Communist election takes this course: screening of prospective voters and elimination of "undesirable" elements, indoctrination of voters and selection of candidates, election by open ballot, and further screening and training of the elected representatives.
The Tokyo Shimbun correspondent in Peiping reported May 8 that the regime is laying the groundwork for a collective leadership of those who now hold power under Mao. He said there is intention to avert the sort of confusion that afflicted Russia after the death of Stalin and especially after destruction of the Stalin myth. Thus a current campaign seeks to strengthen the teachings of Mao and raise Mao's status to the level of Marx and Lenin.
Hardening Line
The Japanese reporter said Mao's deteriorating health and the possibility of his early death had led Peiping leaders to speed the brainwashing and ideological purification of intellectuals and city dwellers, and the establishment of a collective leadership structure.
In reality, Peiping has been hardening the line against the slightest intellectual freedom for the last three years. The "ministry of culture" announced in February that more than 160,000 writers, artists, actors, and musicians have been exiled to farm factory or the military in an attempt to purge them of "bourgeois" inclinations. In the last year alone, three-fifths of the staff members of the "ministry of culture" have been dispatched to mountain villages, mines, and other remote places. The "minister" and two "vice ministers" were dismissed.
Unrest and Fear
The regime's difficulties are compounded by these other factors:
—Unrest, fear of war, and anti-Communist tendencies within the armed forces.
—Disillusionment of young people, who are bitterly opposed to being sent to remote hinterlands "to learn from the peasants".
—A peasantry numbering five-sevenths of the vast mainland population that stubbornly insists on putting personal gain ahead of the state.
—International isolation so complete that foreign policy has become a mere mish mash and mumbo-jumbo of slogans and hate words.
Pressure has been increased against intellectuals who are "red skin-deep" or only "pink". The Communists are especially annoyed by writers who have been using historical figures as an outlet for their funstrations. Historians have come under repeated criticism. Their old works have been taken off dusty shelves for the purpose of nit picking. Examples include:
—Tien Han, historical dramatist who rose to fame some 30 years ago, criticized for depicting some feudal-age emperors as protectors of the people.
—Hsia Yuan, dramatist, criticized for his play on Chiu Chin, a female revolutionary martyr of pre-republican days, in which he denounced the religious fanatics of the Boxer Rebellion.
—Tseng Chi-hua, editor of The History of Chinese Motion Pictures, attacked for his statement that leftist film workers of the early 1930s already embraced the Marxist-Leninist view of the world and of literature and art. His critics maintain that this contradicts Mao Tse-tung's talks at the Yenan forum on art and literature.
Even the Great Monkey of the popular Chinese adventure story has been "liquidated" for not being "a revolutionary in and out". The new line claims the Monkey resisted the heavenly authority and ransacked the heavenly palace for selfish motives and not in the interest of the great mass of people. Kuo Mo-jo and Mao Tse-tung are among those who once lauded the Monkey as a great hero.
Having written millions of words in a span of more than 40 years, Kuo could easily have made slips here and there. Additionally, Chinese Communism is not as rigidly Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist in practice as it is in ideological pretense. What is right this year may be wrong the next. Errors long have been pointed out and confessions made. Because Mao himself is of provincial and anti-intellectual bent, not all of tills makes sense.
Kuo's Confession
Reports from Peiping said Kuo Mo-jo's self-abasement was a consequence of observations made by "deputy minister of culture" Shih Hsi-men. Kuo must have sensed it was too late to defend himself. So he groveled in the dirt and stipulated that his political, historical, and literary works are "absolutely valueless in the light of the standards today" and therefore "should be burned". He said he had been closely following the press debate aimed at others in order to reform himself. He said:
"I have not been treating these articles as if they had had little to do with me. Almost every article and every piece of critic ism can be taken as directed at myself. I am not speaking lightly. It is a fact that I have learned Chairman Mao's thinking badly and that I have not re-educated myself thoroughly."
Kuo said he had been confused about social classes. He said he still could not talk about how to serve workers, peasants, and soldiers, and had to accept them as his teachers and learn from them.
"Though I am more than 70 years old," Kuo continued, "energy is still boiling within me. I am willing to cover my body with mud, with oil, even with blood. If imperialist elements attack us, I shall throw grenades at them."
On April 30, two days after the publication of Kuo's confession, Chou En-lai said a new cultural purge was under way. "This is a fierce and protracted struggle of whether the proletariat or the bourgeoisie will win in the ideological field," said the Red "premier".
On May 4 the Liberation Army Daily told of the existence of a rebellious group high in the Communist Party and said the very survival of Mao's ideology was at stake. The editorial demanded resolute elimination of "the black line of bourgeois, anti-party, anti-socialist revisionism". "It is a struggle to death between us and them," the military paper said.
Strange Difference
One passage of this editorial differed from the party view of the "great debate". It reads: "Some people did produce bad works but at heart they are still one and the same as the party and socialism. Their defects and mistakes can be corrected. Such comrades should be dealt with separately from the small group of anti-party, anti socialist elements."
Was this meant to protect Kuo Mo-jo? Was the military trying to win friends in the power struggle? Or was it merely trying to expand its influence by attempting independent views? No clear-cut answer is possible at the moment. The military also has been under suspicion and spasmodic attack ever since the Communists seized power.
Whatever the real intention of the Peiping leaders toward Kuo Mo-jo, the struggle between the party and the intellectuals must continue. Anti-intellectualism is the nature of the Chinese Communist beast. In December of 1939, the CCP Central Committee declared:
"Intellectuals and semi-intellectuals who are useful in various degrees and who are basically loyal should' be given appropriate work, trained adequately, and led gradually to correct their weaknesses in the course of our sustained struggle, in order to enable them to remold themselves to adopt truly the point of view of the people and to get along harmoniously with the veteran party members and other members of the cadre as well as with the party members of worker and peasant stock."
Never the Twain—
In other words, intellectuals were given a place in the Communist order only because they were "useful". They were not trusted and still are not. Given Communism's means and ends, it is difficult to see how they could ever be accepted. Mao's greatest problem has always been how to move into the nuclear age on the back of a draft animal.
This ambivalence is reflected in a carrot-and-stick approach that before 1957 obtained the required response from many intellectuals. But since the callous betrayal of those so-called "bourgeois elements" in 1957—when Communist leaders encouraged intellectuals to criticize party and "government" and then turned on their critics as "rightists" and "counter-revolutionaries"— no thinking Chinese has believed in the promises of the regime.
Communism is a fraternity into which a man is not admitted merely because he parrots the theory. Many intellectuals know— and understand—the ideology better than dedicated Communists. Admission depends, as the Communists tirelessly repeat, on unquestioning adherence. But the function of intellectualism is to question. So this is a twain that can never meet.
On the mainland of China today, every member of the political machine must be dedicated to the infallibility of the party leaders and pledged to carry out their directives. When there are questions, the political machine ruthlessly sweeps away those who ask them. The Chinese Communist method is rule by organized intimidation. Only it doesn't seem to be working. Intellectuals are still asking their questions. The regime is still finding it cannot survive without them. Thus the enforced confessions.
Hsun Tzu, a philosopher of the 3ed century B.C., said: "The people are the water and the ruler the boat; the water can support the boat, but it can also sink it."
Mao Tse-tung has said that the struggle of opposites is endless. Unlike Marx and Lenin, who maintained that two become one as thesis and antithesis become synthesis, Mao says "one becomes two" because any situation always has two opposites.
He is right in one sense. As long as the Communists hold power, there always will be a struggle between the party and those who believe in freedom. It will end only when Communism is destroyed and the people are permitted to think and act for themselves.