China's Year of Turmoil

...China's Year of Turmoil Hong Kong Mao Tse-tung is a hopeless romantic who has never lost the vision of the Long March The only lesson he appears to have learned from the failure of the Great Leap Forward is that backyard steel furnaces are considerably more trouble than they are worth He still hopes to promote economic development by glorious bounds rather than by the prosaic, but significant, advance of the years between the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution The best illustration of Mao's mterest m reckless, showy projects was the explosion m June of a hydrogen bomb over the Taklamakan desert m the northwestern provmce of Smkiang The nuclear program, easily the largest single item on China's national budget, represented a political triumph over purged President Liu Shao-chi, who had called for emphasis on more practical matters ' This victory has smashed the revisionist hne on science pursued by those top Parry persons m authority who take the capitalist road," said a Peking statement deriding Liu and his allies The "victory" also cost Donald Kirk is currently a coi respondent in Southeast Asia for the McGraw-Hill World News Service By Donald Kirk China roughly 2 5 per cent of its annual Gross National Product, estimated last year at between $65-$70 billion, and half of its total electrical output, which is only 3 per cent of the Umted States' The Chinese propaganda machine could not avoid issuing a series of warnings that strongly indicated Mao's economy was again plunging into an abyss from which no hydrogen explosion could extricate it "Practice economy m carrying out the Revolution," was the headline over several editorials in People's Daily "Every revolutionary should implement this great call of Chairman Mao conscientiously and in its entirety, vigorously grasp revolution and stimulate production, resolutely protect state and collective property and cut out all unnecessary expenditure " The editorial may well have represented a compromise between Mao's desire to prosecute the Revolution on the same scale as the Great Leap and the good sense of such figures as Premier Chou En-lai, who is worried about decreases m production and damage caused by conflicts between workers and Red Guards The question today is whether those rational men still in power, such as Chou, can exert a significant braking influence on Mao's lofty ambitions without losing their own positions, or whether the fighting that still goes on in China will finally force Mao to abandon his dreams Again People's Daily provides concrete indications of the fears of an obviously influential segment of China's leadership The newspaper reported that Peking's "Revolutionary Committee" had issued a decree demanding "economies" and accusing some of Mao's alhes in the Cultural Revolution of reverting to the "bourgeois" practices of which they have accused Liu Shao-chi "Cultural Revolution administrative organs and mass organizations" were ordered not to buy such luxury items as cameras, radios, television sets and cars, and not to waste public money on banquets, operas and movies Another editorial accused "some enterprises and units" of failing to economize on coal, steel, timber, petroleum and other raw materials, and of not trying "to make use of junk and used materials in every possible way" The editorial, published in June, was the first official indication that China was suffering shortages and setbacks in virtually all key areas of industry Peking is so worried about the economy, in fact, that People's Daily has exhorted its readers to use mud instead of glue for pasting political posters to walls It has also pointed out that loudspeakers on broadcasting vans, besides inciting sometimes violent disagreements between rival factions, are costly to operate Meanwhile, the outlines of an inner power struggle among Mao's closest advisers, notably Chou and Lin Piao, the defense minister and heir apparent to Mao's throne, have emerged m Red Flag, theoretical journal of the Chinese Communist party "If we struggle for personal power and hold power for a small group, we will turn a deaf ear to Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee," said Red Flag, edited by Chen Po-ta, Mao's secretary and head of the Cultural Revolution group "We will 'go it alone,' arbitrarily forget about the class enemy and direct our guns at our brothers " For the sake of at least an external appearance of unity, Chen has had to defend Chou against Red Guards After an incident involving some 300 Red Guards who fought with soldiers outside the gates of the State Council m Peking m a vain effort to speak with Chou personally, Chen declared that Chou "should not be attacked " Revealing for the first time that Chou had been criticized, Chen reminded China's young zealots that the Piemier was "responsible for carrying on the policy of Chairman Mao" and implied that China's bureaucracy might all but fall apart if Chou's position were strongly challenged One irony of this struggle is that Chen, as a top adviser to Mao and probably the writer of his important statements, would most likely prefer to see Chou downgraded The reason for Chen's personal dislike of Chou is that his own influence has declined somewhat since Chou successfully warded off Red Guard assaults on several of his deputy premiers last winter After remaining publicly silent during the initial onslaught on China s top economic figures, Chou stopped Red Guards from including his aides in their campaign by declaring, "I am short of deputy premiers " Among those he saved, at least temporarily, were Chen Yi, the foreign minister, whose position is still very much in doubt, and three others, including the minister of finance, the minister of agriculture and the chairman of the state planning commission "It's not necessary to hold a rally," Chou was reported to have advised Red Guards when apprised of their desire to publicly castigate all foui of these men Still, Chou was not able to block wall poster attacks, including a particularly serious diatribe that accused the minister of agriculture of obeying Liu Shao-chi and demanded that he be "bombarded to death " Observers could not help but wonder how much longer Chou, the canny moderator, could succeed in compromising with Mao to preserve his own position The basic difference between Chou and Lin Piao, whose views presumably were the same as Mao's, was apparent from contrasting statements attributed to each of them last spring Tactful as always, Chou suggested that the "proletanan Cultural Revolution" show "its brilliancy not only in the field of political thought but also in those of economic construction and scientific le-search Chou's fundamental concern for the latter was evident in his reminder that China was now in the "second year of the third five-year plan," the obvious implication being that Chinese "revolutionaries" had apparently forgotten economic planning in their drive to remake the country according to the gospel of Mao While Chou called on the populace to "struggle for this year's bountiful harvest" and "fight for a further rise in industrial output," Lin Piao threatened to follow an economic course almost as irrational as the Great Leap, from which China had not entirely recovered when the Cultural Revolution was formally launched a year ago "Do not be afraid of disorders," Lm was reported to have told a secret meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist party in Peking "Such things are not important Only by having disorder is it possible to distinguish the black elements Therefore disorder is, m fact, a great victory" Lm, who accompanied Mao on the Long March in 1935 and has been his most faithful disciple ever since, was careful to admit what was already well-known —that production had declined during strikes and railway disruptions last winter But he claimed that production had gone up again and, in a totally unwarranted burst of optimism, announced, "Soon we will have a Great Leap " In proof of Mao's celebrated maxim that "power grows out of the barrel of a gun, the most significant pawns m the struggle are the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army Superficially, Defense Minister Lin might appear to have the most strength Analysts here point out, however, that Lm does not control the Army except in Peking and Shanghai, the two most impoitant cities, and four other provinces over which Maoist forces claim leal powei Elsewhere in the country military commanders maintain positions of varying degrees of independence from central authority Indeed, one reason Mao has moved so slowly against Liu Shao-chi and others is that he is afraid of mcuriing the wiath of military commanders, who might then start a full-fledged civil war Chou En-Iai holds onto his prestige and influence partly because of his good relations with important military men, many of whom hold Lm in contempt Recalcitrant generals are believed responsible for promoting some of the clashes between soldiers and workers The Army, nevertheless, has played a decisive role in Mao's progiam of "seizures of power" from "reactionary" followers of Liu Shao-chi Peking's clear-cut aim is for loyal military forces to control the entire country above the village and commune level, which should in turn be controlled by the "People's Militia " The Army has exercised particular power in both agriculture and industry, with soldiers supervising both peasants collecting the harvest and workers in the factories A primary reason for production decreases according to an experienced China-watcher, was the replacement of factory managers by military commanders "The great 'heresy' of Lm Shao-chi was that factories should be run by engineers and technicians," said one sardonic observer, a veteran of a decade in Pekmg before fleeing to Hong Kong m 1959 "Now the factories are run by the stupid ones, the military men They know nothing but they are politically reliable ' The assignment of the Army to support the "revolutionary rebels" in the attack on Liu Shao-chi and his allies was the most severe blow for the Chinese Communist party since Red Guards began to "bombard the Party headquarters" a year ago this month The power of local Party leaders was often transferred to Army commanders, or else the prestige of Party bureaucrats was so severely undermined that they could no longer carry out routine administrative duties The Army, though, has hardly proved an effective substitute for the Party Commanders, even those supposedly loyal to Mao and Lm, have sometimes not sided with Red Guards m clashes with workers and peasants for fear of arousing the ire and disloyalty of troops who were of peasant stock themselves In some cases local military leaders merely withdrew or totally abstained from participating in the power struggle They might intervene against complete breakdowns in transportation and anarchy in economic institutions, but only to restore order, not to support a particular political faction The breakdown of Party power and prestige is just one part of the social chaos and disintegration of institutions that has overwhelmed China in the past year Basically, in the opinion of Hong Kong analysts, the cohesive forces within Chinese society have begun to collapse Letters from mainland Chinese to relatives overseas, provincial radio broadcasts, Red Guard newspapers and Peking propaganda all give a picture of violence in schools, on the streets and in the factories "I don't know how it's going to end, is a cliche often repeated by eyewitnesses describing local situations Symbolic of the general erosion of values and controls in China is a sharp rise in complaints of petty thievery, such as a rash of bicycle thefts in Pekmg and Shanghai The increase in this type of crime is especially striking, since hooliganism was virtually absent in the first 17 years of China's existence as a "People's Republic " Amid all the negative reports, one phase of Chinese activity that continues to expand is the publication of Mao's works New China News Agency boasted not long ago that 29 million copies were printed in the first five months of this year, one and a half times more than the total printed from 1949 through 1966 While China suffers, Mao Tse-tung, "the reddest, reddest, red sun in our hearts," as one propaganda magazine described him, remains the object of a cult of hero-worship unprecedented m modern times He appears to sit on a throne far above—and possibly oblivious to—the brutal conflicts swirling about his feet Observers believe that he still sets impossible goals for China's economy at a time when it appears to have already suffered severely from his ministrations He thinks in terms of great projects, many of his countrymen pray only for peace and stability and the chance to make a modest living Some analysts point out that the immediate effect of the Great Leap Forward was to provoke widespread economic disorder, while the Cultural Revolution began by breaking down political institutions Once the economy was restored to normal after the Leap, disorders subsided and political institutions remained responsive to Peking's instructions In the case of the Cultural Revolution, however, the trouble stems from the breakdown of the political chain of command and has gradually spilled over into the economy Now that China lacks an effective bureaucracy, observers believe that the country's recuperative capacity is weaker today than it was six years ago, so that the long-range consequences of the Cultural Revolution could be even worse than those of the Leap In any event China appears to have begun a slow process of undoing the steady gains made by Liu Shao-chi and his allies in the period between the "Great Setback" that followed the Leap and the start of the Cultural Revolution...