How Mao conquered China: Workers' Liberty 3/24

7. Revolution in a straitjacket

The great metropolises of China, its modern centres of Shanghai, Nanking and Hankow, are about to fall to Stalinist armies. It is now clear that there will be no real, genuine, stable peace until the Stalinists have completed the conquest of all China north of the Yangtse from its estuary on the China Sea to the great Szchechuan plain in the west, one of the most fertile and richest areas. The problem of the CP is how to achieve hegemony over the rest of China from this continental boundary in the most economical, speedy and politically satisfactory fashion. For this objective, military...

8. Mao and neo-Stalinism: the path of the Chinese CP

Are the Chinese Stalinists different? The very question is one of the more cruel hoaxes of our time, yet many people honestly believe that somehow the CP of China is not like other Stalinist parties. We are not referring here to the economic or political programme of the Chinese CP, but only to its internal regime, to its attitude toward factions, relationship between members and leaders, freedom of internal expression — those organisational characteristics which determine whether or not a party is democratic, whether it sets its own policies or is subservient to alien powers. Thus Harold...

9. Peking versus Moscow: the case of Anna Louise Strong, part 1

The Moscow dispatch announcing that Anna Louise Strong had been placed under arrest as a spy startled all observers of Stalinist political life. In its terse announcement Tass reported that: “Mrs. Strong is accused of espionage and subversive activity directed against the Soviet Union.” She is described as “the notorious intelligence agent.” It is indicated that she will be expelled shortly from Russia. Another amazing phrase of the dispatch declares that she made her way into the USSR “only through negligence of certain foreign relations officials.” Since her “notoriety” as a spy, and...

10. Whose spy is who? The Anna Louise Strong case, part 2

At this writing there remain a few additional observations to be made, but no serious modification of the original idea seems necessary on the basis of events of the past week. The explanation of the Strong incident which seems to cover most of the known facts is that her arrest as a spy by the Russian police is an incident in the silent struggle between Russian imperialist objectives in China and the needs of the Chinese Communist Party. There have long been indications of difficulties between the two. The Strong incident is the first public declaration by Moscow of its determination and a...

11. What is Chinese Stalinism? Notes on the new state party

Throughout Asia the post-war period has been one of vast social upheaval. What happened in Europe after the First World War is now happening in Asia after the second. Without the organising technology of modern society which links together great areas and peoples and without extensive industry which creates a more homogeneous and substantial working class, Asia’s revolutions have taken varied forms. In no case have these changes been organised by a socialist revolutionary party basing itself on the workers. Leadership has fallen to national bourgeois classes, social democrats (Burma) or to...

12. The bureaucratic revolution rolls on

The central strategy of the Chinese CP armies is clearly not geographic. While their march below the Yangtze has brought huge territorial acquisitions, the main military objective is the destruction of Kuomintang armies rather than conquest of specific objectives. This kind of piecemeal strategy is an essential characteristic of the Stalinist conquest. It is based on military advance strictly planned and regulated by the top leadership. The great masses of the village and city are deliberately kept quiescent. Their support is solicited, but only as benevolent neutrals. On the day of launching...

13. The integration of the intelligentsia

From Peiping last week the Chinese CP news agency announced completion of preparations for a definitive conference to be held late summer to form a new national government. One of the aspects of the bureaucratic revolution is the Stalinist emphasis on continuation in office of the old functionaries of lower rank wherever possible. The CP seeks to win to itself whole sections of the old administration whom they desperately need to operate their governmental structure. Recently new schools were established where “ex-Kuomintang officials learn to serve the people.” Beside the smaller fry CP...

14. A look at future problems

A turning point has been reached in the Chinese bureaucratic revolution. Recent events have forced the hands of the new rulers. They are now in the process of accelerating a change in policy which they had expected to accomplish gradually, or as Mao Tse-tung never failed to emphasise, “by stages.” The Stalinist government has increased taxes and revenue in kind in order to feed its newly conquered cities. In fact, it has attempted to woo the workers, from whom the party has been alienated these last 20 years, by tying wages to the rice-price index. This has been done in Shanghai and Nanking as...

15. Rigging the bureaucratic state

The assembly convened by the Chinese Communist Party has proclaimed a new state from the capital at Peiping. Mao Tze-tung, head of the party, is also chief of state; Chou En-lai, one of the party’s top triumvirate, premier and foreign minister. Communist Party domination is indisputable and complete in all sections of the new government. In the larger framework of the international balance of power the problems are only becoming apparent and new ones will arise. The US has been outflanked in the entire North Pacific, for example. With Manchuria under the Russian thumb, with connections to the...

16. The fall of Canton

The fall of Canton brings a close to a two-and-a-half year civil war in China. Except for the rice bowl of Szechuan, deep in the Yangtze valley, every major section of traditional China is in CP hands. Canton is not simply another city. It was the heart of native capitalism. As long ago as the middle of the 16th century this city became the major trading port with the Portuguese and later with the Dutch and British. During the last century, it was here that the only major popular resistance was organised by the commercial classes over the heads of the corrupt imperial government at Peking...

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