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Foreign Press Opinion
[li]Publication Date：02/01/1959[/li] Status of Mao Tse-Tung
Commenting on the Chinese Communist official confirmation of the Taipei intelligence report that the Chinese Communist Party had decided to replace Mao Tse-tung as chairman of the Communist Peiping regime, the Salt Lake Tribune stated on December 18:
"There is general disagreement as to the significance of the retirement next month of Mao Tse-tung as president of Communist China.
"In making the announcement, after keeping the news secret for a week, the Communist Party Central Committee in Peiping took pains to emphasize that Mao's retirement was voluntary .... "
"It is true that all has not gone smoothly for the current 'great leap forward' program" continued the Tribune. "Communist Chinese newspaper articles last month disclosed severe food shortages in the communal mess halls. The People's Daily was warning over-enthusiastic directors of the communes that ordinary workers should be allowed eight hours sleep everyday, with even 'shock workers' being permitted six hours sleep".
"Nor can it be forgotten that first word of the still secret change in Mao's status came from the Chinese Nationalists on the basis of reports from their underground agents in mainland China. Obviously the Chinese on Formosa do have at least some sources of information from inner Communist circles," the Tribune stressed.
Mao's partial retirement, confirmed at a time when the Chinese Communist regime was already seething with mixed emotions regarding the communes and the current 'leap forward' campaign to spur industry and agriculture, came as a baffling event and one which, wrote Gordon Walker of Christian Science Monitor on December 19, "has caused widespread unrest and bewilderment."
Assuming that "no Western observer, diplomat, or student connected with mainland China affairs is capable at the moment of making an accurate analysis of what now is happening inside mainland China", the chief Far Eastern correspondent of the Monitor believed that "Mao's resignation may not be so voluntary an action as official communiqués make out and that indeed he may have succumbed to the basic criticism of other members of the top hierarchy."
"It has long been rumored but never substantially proved that there have been two schools of thought in Peking - those who favor rapid evolution toward Communism and those who prefer to go slowly."
"It is reported that the go-slow group, including Premier Chou En-lai," the correspondent went on, "has opposed a long series of Mr. Mao's changes dating back to 1955 when he ordered the formation of agricultural cooperatives and continuing on through the rectification campaign and the present movement to organize commune ....
"It will probably be some time before the situation is clarified. But it seems legitimate speculation that during the course of the recent Wuhan party conference, Mr. Mao agreed to stage a tactical withdrawal, confining himself to doctrinal rather than to administrative affairs ....
"Mr. Mao may have suffered on the tactical front, but there still is no indication that he has lost anything of his prestige as Marxism's leading exponent and interpreter in China."
Conceding it may never be fully explained whether or not the announcement of Mr. Mao's retirement was in tended to be leaked at such an early date, the correspondent stressed that "Nationalist intelligence sources on Formosa scored brilliantly in learning details of the Wuhan party conference and breaking the story to the world. And it is regarded in informed quarters here as quite likely that Peking's hand was forced."
In an article which appeared in the Kansas City Times on December 19, Thomas P. Whitney wrote:
"It seems quite possible that a main reason for Mao's quitting as president is to disassociate Mao's personal prestige and reputation in some degree from acts of the Chinese Communist government. The most important thing going on in Communist China today is the nationwide organization of people's communes."
"The drive to organize these communes constitutes," continued the columnist, "a drastic social revolution. It is much more far-reaching than the drive to organize collective farms in Russia in the 1928-32 period.
"Such a revolution cannot be carried out without resistance; the government will have to suppress discontent on a nationwide scale. This purge, in terms of the numbers of people and probably in the brutality involved, may make Joseph Stalin's purge look mild."
"It is important to the Chinese Communist party to keep as unsullied as possible the image of Mao Tse-tung as father to the masses. Therefore it is timely for Mao Tse-tung to leave the helm of the government," the columnist said.
Failure of the Commune Drive
Commenting on the failures of the Chinese Communist drive to establish the so-called people's communes all over the mainland, the Detroit News observed on December 20:
"In the backwash of Mao Tse-tung's resignation as president of Red China, the Peiping government has publicly admitted serious trouble with its people over the so-called communes. No one is surprised.
"Some observers have seen the communes as attempt to realize ideal Communism. Others have speculated that the Chinese are preparing themselves to be the only nation capable of surviving nuclear war. For the communes can be viewed as hundreds of hedge-hog strong points each capable of independent survival."
There is a much simpler and more immediate explanation. Despite that China's first five-year plan ended in 1957 with some spectacular industrial achievements, "agriculture failed notably and critically to keep up." Consequently, the resulting crisis "has virtually repeated the Soviet experience in the 1920s. Towns which could scarcely build houses enough for essential workers were overrun by peasants drifting from collectivized farms toward the vision of better things. The farms meanwhile, still under primitive cultivation, produced relatively less food and raw material needed to support the workers and provide capital for the expansion of industry.
"Communes proposed to solve both problems, Pin the roving peasant in place by military control: step up farm production by enlarging farm units and working them with more tightly disciplined labor." This drive may look like theoretical Communism in action on paper, but in reality, it "looks more like a desperate report to quasi-slavery in order to get the nation over the economic hump of its industrial revolution when it must either move ahead fast or fail," the News concluded.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer remarked on December 23:
"The party resolution published Thursday by the Chinese Communists is certain proof that things aren’t going too well, and that it's pretty hard to disregard all the concepts of capitalism, and yet keep the people happy.
"For example - the Chinese Red masters admitted that wage incentives were still necessary to encourage 'labor enthusiasm' - a 100% capitalistic point of view.
"They admitted that they must dispel fears that all private property, such as houses, clothing, furniture and bank deposits, would be surrendered to the commune."
" erhaps the greatest selling point for the capitalistic system is", declared the Dealer, "the fact that nations which attempt to disregard its basic concepts run into trouble. Sooner or later they have to recognize that a man will work harder for personal gain than he will for a slogan, no matter how carefully the latter is prepared. He will also work harder for his own family in his own house than he would for any communal housing arrangement....
"The more we see of our political and economic systems, the more we feel assured that capitalism is on sound ground, and that it will still be here when the others have disappeared. For even the Reds have to come back, reluctantly, to many of its basic concept."
The Gannet Newspapers said on December 23:
"A slow-down in communizing China has been ordered by the Central Committee of the party in a resolution, passed at a 12-day session. The action was recognition of much opposition, especially in the cities, against Mao Tse-tung's plan to organize all of China's 300 million people into local communes formed along military lines.
"Another evidence of bitter opposition was the Committee's retirement of Mao as Chairman of the Republic. On the record this had his approval but the reasons were not to his credit. There might have been serious revolt against his rule if he had not stepped aside."
"The free world will greet with satisfaction that Red China .is having to moderate its drive toward complete communization. But it should not be overlooked that the slowdown could mean eventual complete establishment of the Red system," the Newspapers warned.
Believing the commune-drive was one of the blackest marks in the history of the Chinese Communists, the Oakland Tribune observed on December 7: "From Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, one time director of the Democratic Research Institute of UNESCO, who has just ended a trip into Red China, comes this description:
"'It is a huge zoo.' A place where humanity has been reduced to the status of animals, with enslaved bodies and enslaved minds, all speaking with one voice.
"'It is shocking, this creation of a mass mind,' he declared. He had other tales difficult to believe too, all of them evidence of the determination of the ruler of Peiping to destroy the individuality, the intelligence and the traditions of the Chinese people."
"From a short film record that somehow found its way out of Red China and on to American television screens this week, we have been given visual proof of the physical torment and the mental circumscription to which the Chinese masses have been forced to submit.
" .... We have seen and we have heard enough that should provide irrefutable argument to those who have demanded, and continue to demand in the name of 'reality,' that we accept the Chinese Communists as equals in the decisions that affect the future of the world and as equals .... in the world of commerce and industry," the Tribune stated.
Uprising in Tibet
In a report which appeared in the Daily Mail on January 1, Noel Barber, the special correspondent to the Mail, wrote:
"And this is the story told us by General Wangdue, who was in Lhasa, capital of Tibet, only six weeks ago:
"China now has 750,000 troops in Tibet, including 300,000 moved in during 1957. Four and a half million colonizers, including women and children, have been sent in from China. A 'Police Army' 3,000 strong has taken over civic duties in all major towns and villages. All do regular training with combat troops.
"In a war that nobody knows about guerillas claim more than 50,000 Chinese killed in the past 12 months and admit that 22,000 Tibet freedom fighters have been killed, 'No prisoners are taken on either side,' said the general.
"The story of what is happening in Tibet today, as it has been unfolded in this little camp of ours, is like flicking over the pages of Dante's Inferno: monasteries bombed, monks shot at prayer, old Tibetans used as slaves, Tibetans themselves killing their wives before taking to the hills as all Tibetan women are now forced to bear at least one 'Chinese' child.
"Thousands of Tibetan boys and girls have been shanghaied to China for 'education.' starvation is rampant and nobody can even guess the number who have died from it.
In the past two years, as the guerrillas have stepped up their attacks 17,000 Tibetans, other than guerillas, have been killed in air raids or punitive drives. Today the Chinese have seven airfields in the country: Tachienlu, Nagchuka, Gartok, Chamdo, Kanoe and Litang.
"As the Chinese forge inwards and southwards a labor force of 420,000 Chinese has 'already built six major roads-three from China inwards, three pointing at or parallel to India's northern frontiers. Among them the Chinese also have a complete spy network.
"Chinese troops patrol the entire southern border area, and have started training schools for Fifth Columnists ready to enter Nepal and the Indian States. Against this the warrior tribe of Tibet, the Khamas, are fighting to the death. General Wangdue, 6 ft. tall, with shaven head and wearing a sheepskin tunic, personally leads every attack on the Chinese convoys.
"But he admitted: 'We have no hope any more, but we shall fight to the death for our honor and because we are tied by unbreakable bonds to our religious institutions, which are more important to us than life."'
Commenting on the anti-Communist uprising now in full swing in Tibet, the Time & Tide said editorially in its January 17 issue.
"While the Peking Government is imposing total regimentation upon the Chinese people, it has still not succeeded in subjugating the Tibetans. During the last three years Tibetan gucrillas have caused trouble in varying degrees for their Chinese overlords. The rebellion which started ill eastern Tibet in the province of Kham, has spread throughout the length and breadth of the country, with the lamas in the forefront of the conflict. One of their strongest weapons is the disruption on the famous Peking-Lhasa road. This delays convoys and sometimes the guerillas succeed in destroying them, though the Chinese are now in fact building a diversion to avoid that section running through Khamba
"The unrest has become so widespread that recently the Chinese forced the Dalai Lama to issue a statement asking Tibetans to be on the alert against subversive plots aimed at splitting the country, but the Tibetans, knowing that the Dalai Lama is no longer a free agent, interpreted this statement in their own way and continued their guerilla warfare with renewed vigor. The Chinese claimed that 'imperialist elements', 'secret agents of Chiang Kai-shek and some reactionaries in Tibet' were behind the plots. This is a classic Communist device to explain unrest and thus to accuse any Tibetan who opposes the rule of Peking of being an imperialist agent. Under this pretext the Chinese feel free to use the most severe method of repression.
"eking is concerned that news of the extent of the Tibetan unrest should not reach the outside world, but more important still that it should not reach China proper, for fear of disaffection among other national minorities inside the country. Mao Tse-tung has not yet been able to fulfill his pledge to the Tibetan people to wipe out the poisonous element of feudalism' and Peking has had to make great concessions. Not only have projected 'reforms' been postponed for six years, but the Chinese have had to accept the position and try 'to cooperate with the people of the upper strata.' Even the lower classes in Tibet have resisted attempts to remove their almost mediaeval ruling hierarchy." |
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发表于 2012-2-29 21:17:55
发表于 2012-3-1 01:52:05