People under communism; Communism in China

This it is people under communism a series of documentaries interview and talks based upon documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intentions of the Soviet Union. The series is presented transcribed by the National Association of educational broadcasters in consultation with scholars from the Russian Research Center Harvard University the Russian Institute Columbia University and the Hoover Institute and library. Stanford University. Once again we're to hear from Dr. Harold H Fisher chairman of the Hoover Institute and library as he talks about communism in China. Dr. Fisher is the author of many books and articles on the Soviet Union. He served with the American League of ministration in Russia has traveled extensively in Asia and is a scholar on Soviet policy in the Far East. Dr. Fischer will be joined a bit later in the program by his special guest and colleague from the

Hoover Institute Robert C. North author of the woman down and Chinese communist elite. Now Dr. Fischer and communism in China. Events in China since World War 2 have caused a vast amount of speculation controversy and confusion. We are offended and baffled because our old friends the Chinese have acted in such an unexpected and ungrateful fashion. It takes more knowledge of China than most of us have and more patience then and effort than most of us are willing to give to understand what has actually happened among the people for whom we have always had a friendly feeling but whose ways of life are so much different from our own. When men are confused and frightened or worried they look for a simple explanation of their troubles. Sometimes they have found these explanations in evil spirits and sometimes an evil man. The simplest easiest and to some the most satisfying

explanation of the present situation in China is that the Communists got control there by means of a Russian Communist plot in which some disloyal Americans played a part. I wonder if you believe that so tremendous and up evil as that through which China is not passing can be explained in such simple terms everyone will surely agree that the Russians had a hand in the success of the Chinese communists. Everyone will agree that American policy has failed to prevent that success. That question then would seem to be what were the special conditions or developments in China that the communist took advantage of. And we did not. Another question is about the future. Will China sink more and more under Russian domination until it becomes a permanent junior ally or even perhaps a subordinate part of the Union of Socialist Soviet republics. My colleague Mr. Robert C.

north and I are going to discuss these matters. Mr. North is the editor of the quarterly magazine the Pacific spectator. He is the author of the prize novel The revolt in San Marcos. He has made a special study of communism in Asia and he has recently published a book on the gloaming dong and Chinese communist elite. But before Mr. North tells you something about how this great revolution in China started I should like to recall to your mind a few facts about China that have a bearing on the questions we have raised. First of all the area of China is about four million square miles. This is not quite one fourth larger than the United States and it's about one half the size of the Soviet Union. China's population is estimated anywhere from four hundred fifty to five hundred millions. It's at least three times that of the United States and over twice that of the Soviet Union. Much of China is hilly or mountainous

and cannot be cultivated. 70 percent is at least three thousand feet above sea level and less than 15 percent of the land is below 15 hundred feet. Eighty percent of China's millions are peasant farmers living precariously by the most intensive cultivation on small plots of land. Knowledge has always been greatly respected in China but 80 percent of the people are illiterate. Partly because of the difficulty of Chinese characters and partly because books and newspapers were written in a classical style unfamiliar to a great majority of the people. These millions in China include about a dozen different racial stalks speaking over 40 languages and dialects besides Chinese. China is or was divided into 28 provinces and two territories. China proper consists of 18 provinces south of the great wall outer Tyler includes Manchuria Inner Mongolia Jiang and nearer Tibet and in

area this outer China is almost as large as China proper. But the population is about 10 percent of that of the of China proper and consist mostly except in Manchuria. Among those Turkic peoples and Tibetans along the borders of out of China the Chinese empire and the Russian Empire have competed for power for about three centuries. The ancient Chinese empire has a big quis to revolutionary China a tradition of national unity. They believe in the mission of a ruling group a bureaucracy responsible not to the people but to the rulers and the tradition of duty of the people to obey their elders and rulers with these traditions revolutionary China has inherited many problems common to most of Asia. Poverty ignorance economic backwardness and hostility to the Western world. The important thing seems to be that there are two aspects to communist

successes in China. On the one hand we have a revolution which probably would have taken place anyway even if the soffit Union had never existed. And on the other hand we have communist attempts to capture this homegrown discontent and rebellion and drive it in a soft direction. What then was this indigenous. This homegrown revolution. Well the causes were numerous and complex. It was partly a revolt against poverty and human inequalities but also to a considerable extent it was a revolt against Western economic and political penetration and control of large areas of Asia including parts of China. And against those Chinese who had collaborated with the Westerner in these days when Western imperialism is weathering away we are

inclined to forget that our imperialism of the past did turn many Asians against us. It must be said here that the United States was never imperialistic to the extent that many European nations were. In fact we were often looked upon as the champions of the rights of colonial and semi colonial peoples. But the nations of Europe during the last part of the nineteenth century and especially up until World War 1 not only trespassed upon the sovereignty and the integrity of China they struggled among themselves for the opportunity of exploiting China. This has often been called the Battle of the concessions important port cities of China and other areas of the country fell completely under British French German Czarist Russia and later Japanese control. This roused great Chinese antagonism against the foreigner on Chinese soil and many

Chinese have still not forgotten their bitterness against the West. It was a vicious circle for China could not get along without financial and technical aid from the west. A modern relatively industrialized and prosperous China depended upon aid from the west. But the more of this aid China received the more China was embedded to the west. The Czarist Russian sphere of influence was in Manchuria where the Russians built the Chinese Eastern or Manchurian railway system and leased die ran in Port Arthur. In addition to the railroad right of way Czarist Russia controlled mines timberlands and other important natural resources of Manchuria further south and China proper. The British controlled imports and railways and reprises as did the French the Germans and others.

The Russians lost Port Arthur and Iran first to Japan and then with a Bolshevik revolution in 1017 the Russians lost their control of the Manchurian rear ways and declared that the subject Russia was renouncing all imperialist rights in Manchuria and China proper. Yet by the end of World War 2 when the imperialism of Great Britain and other European nations was rapidly disappearing the Soviet Russians reestablished in Manchuria almost exactly the same pattern of Russian imperialism that the Tsar had lost many years earlier. It's important to keep in mind the fact as Mr. North has told you that the Chinese revolution was not started by the Russian Communists but began long before the communist took control of the Russian of Russia. But the Russians have given very important help. Because the Chinese nationalists were for the reasons

Mr. North has explained were anti imperialist and anti foreign they came into conflict with the Western democracies that had economic interests and special concessions in China and so it happened that the Chinese revolutionists who wanted to make China into a modern democracy got no help from other modern democracies. But the Russian Communists who did not intend to help China become a modern democracy immediately made the gesture of giving up Russia's rights and privileges and they offered to help and actually did help. Dr Sun Yat-Sen and his nationalist party the Communist theory all the imperialism was also attractive to the Chinese. According to this theory the capitalist nations had managed to survive only by exploiting the resources and the people of underdeveloped countries like China capitalist rivalries over countries like China were held to be among the chief causes of war. Therefore the way to end war and to bring social justice and

equality to countries like China was according to this theory to drive out the foreigners who had forced their way in. The Russians also persuaded some of the Chinese revolutionists that the most and in fact the only effective way to win independence and equality was to create a dedicated rigorously disciplined party like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the basis of their own experience in their civil wars. The Russians also taught the Chinese how to Iraq inspire and organize illiterate and politically indifferent peasants and how to wage guerrilla warfare. The Chinese nationalists as well as the communists have made use of these lessons from the Russians. So we see that the Communists began by cooperating with the Quarrymen dong hoping to use the Chinese nationalists for communist purposes. But their spite and elaborately worked up plans. The communists were not immediately successful in

1927 the woman dong Right-Wing and then the left wing turned against the communists. In fact Stalin himself committed a whole series of blunders in China. For one thing he wavered. The plan all out support for the woman dong on the one hand and the stirring up of the working class and peasantry against the woman Dawn on the other hand. Each blunder cost many sometimes thousands of Chinese Communist lives. But Stalin saw to it. In each case the Chinese Communist leaders never Russians were blamed for these failures. Above all you saw to it that responsibility for these errors were not placed upon him by the beginning of 1928 the communist movement in China was all but annihilated. Communism in China was all thoroughly beaten by nine hundred twenty eight and by the way find ourselves wondering how the communists ever

managed to pick themselves up out of the dust and get started again. One of the reasons why the Chinese Communists were able to recover from their defeats of 1927 and 1928 lay in the leadership of matzah dong. Not to Dunn put his faith in the Chinese peasants. He put so much faith in the Chinese presence that the communist hierarchy disciplined him on a number of occasions for several years he remained a second leader. But during all this time he plugged away organizing the dissatisfied peasantry. Make no mistake about it. Ma was a communist and he submitted to communist discipline always too. He worked within the framework of Leninism but he also adapted Leninism to conditions in China thus Maoism gradually developed this model ism was communism with the same all the goals as Russian

communism. But it was communism adjusted especially for conditions in China. A part of Maoism. I was with Russian Communism was a very fluid concept of political tactics. The US won the Japanese war broke out. Malo and his followers did not hesitate to ally themselves again with Guam and on which only a few years earlier had nearly annihilated them. The Warriors were to see the quam dong and the Chinese Communists in an uneasy alliance. So this alliance has had its ups and downs because the Russians have sometimes seem to follow a communist revolutionary policy in China and sometimes they seem to follow a Russian imperialist policy. First of all as Mr. Law said they gave up all their old rights and privileges and then took them back. And then for a time the Russians supported the nationalists that is from nine hundred twenty three to nine hundred twenty seven. And then they gave moral

support but not much else to the communists against the nationalists from nine hundred twenty seven to nine hundred thirty six. But from then until 1946 the Russians really aided the Nationalists. They seem to have expected that the generalists and all they had of the Nationalists would stay in power for some time and therefore they did not actually break with the Nationalists and recognise the new peoples government of Mao Zedong until 1949 after the communists had won some very decisive victories. The fact that the present government in babying is communist and friendly has not caused Russia to give up the position of power again and soon John. Then the end in Manchuria before the communists took power in China. The rulers of Russia undoubtedly are pleased to have the rulers of China pro fast that they will as they say travel the road of the Russians. But these Russian rulers have never allowed their gratitude to their admirers to cause them to diminish in any in any degree the national

claims and interests of Russia. After World War 2 the collapse of the woman dong came rather suddenly. Why. On the surface the dong seemed to have grown stronger during the war. The woman dong organization had been piking this a plant had been tightened junk ice shacks power had been substantially increased nationalist armies had been trained and equipped by the United States. Yet varying 1949 one nationalist held city after another fell to the Communists often without a fight. Many nationalist groups even went over to the Communists. What was the answer. There were probably many answers but Ramadan witnesses were probably as important as communist strengths. There had been

corruption in the Nationalist government. There had been internal struggles for power among the various Roman dong leaders. Above all the Nationalists had not succeeded in meeting the needs are the expectations of the Chinese people. The number of communists had grown but relatively speaking the number of communists was still small in the total population of China. Unfortunately the people were apathetic. Many of them felt that nothing could be worse than what they had scarcely foreseeing what was in store for them under the communists. What was in store for them after that sudden collapse of the of the nationalist regime was a Chinese People's Republic established on October 1st 1949. It has a constitutional foundation which I like so many other communist

constitutions guarantees freedom of thought of speech of publication of assembly to all the people. It's called a people's democratic dictatorship. But whatever it's called It is rapidly becoming if it is not already become a cold totalitarian police state. In other words a communist dictatorship. How these dictators have used force and violence against their enemies and they are imposing more and more strict regimentation on everyone else in China. Their method is well illustrated in their agricultural policy. First of all they confiscated the land lords holdings and redistributed the land in small parcels to individual peasant owners. This was of course popular with the peasant owners but then their next step is to organize the peasants into mutual aid teams. All mutual aid teams have been established in all of China by a half a dozen

families or more in times of famine or flood or other crisis. The third step the Communist take is to change these mutual aid teams into agricultural producers cooperative. Now these are based upon the collective labor but upon the individual ownership of land there are it is said some 3000 of these cooperative had been set up by the end of 1952. Then the fourth and final step which has not yet been taken in China is to transform the cooperative into collective farms based on collective ownership of land and collective labor as is the case of the collective farms in Russia. Well that's kind of collectivization will certainly be resisted by the peasants but it seems unlikely that they or any other element in China can effectively resist the further extension of the dictatorship. And this is not only because of the defensive measures and the coercive measures.

Many many young people and many intellectuals have been drawn into the communist movement who were not communists because they have been inspired by the chance to take part in what is a great national rebirth. Which is at least in the first months of the regime raise aroused great enthusiasm and high hopes. Many of these people were actuated by the belief that the end was so noble and so great that it justified any means how at the time when Mao Tse-Tung seized power in China he differed from other Communist leaders in his relationship to Moscow. Many of the Communist leaders in these satellite countries of Europe were little better than puppets of the Russians. But at the time of his seizure of power was in command

of a highly trained and victorious Chinese Communist army which he himself had built up where the relatively little aid from the outside. Over a period of many years. These groups have been steeled in guerrilla warfare throughout the Japanese war they have fought against the woman dong in earlier years. They had developed a system of highly mobile tactics. Mao Tse-Tung ruled one of the largest and most populist countries in the world a country of great prestige in Asia. He was a communist theoretician in his own right. Having adapted Leninism to conditions in China having often acted against the policies of the Communist International and having succeeded in his

heresies and in having those heresies recognized by the communists in Moscow. Ma was also prominent as an Asian leader and the peoples of other Asian nations tended to respect his power. Whether or not they liked him or what he stood for. Moreover he had a plan which was supposed to raise China up by its own bootstraps. And this was a program other Asians felt they could not ignore. With his present commitments in the Korean War with the military stalemate there and with his increasingly punts upon the subject union for arms and supplies long may not enjoy the same power within the world communist movement that he enjoyed before. Nevertheless we would do ourselves a great disservice if we were to underestimate either his

power or his influence in Asia. Those of us who like Mr. North and me have had the privilege of visiting a joke since the Chinese Communist came into power in in Peking are impressed wherever we go by the the effect which this remarkable reversal of fortunes in China has had upon the other Asian people. The thing which one hears most often said is that China has a great deal to teach the other peoples of Asia just as the Chinese felt that the Russians had much to teach them. That is to teach them in the ways of modernising and transforming the backward and stagnant underdeveloped economic and social systems of the great Asian continent. I'm one of those who had the opportunity to visit

Salvi at Russia and to observe the course of events there. During the first decade after the communists gained control of the Russian government. In those days people who went to Russia were greatly impressed by the constructive energy released by the breakdown of the restrictions on individual initiative and social product progress that had been maintained by the old Czarist regime. Well now something like this same release of individual initiative is now taking place in China. The peoples of India and of other Asian countries are impressed by this in very much the same way that the Europeans and Americans were impressed by what was taking place in Russia in the 1980s in the 1920s. The Asians however tend to overlook just as the Europeans and Americans did a generation ago the long range significance of the new rigid it is imposed by the new

communist totalitarian dictatorship reflection on what has happened in Russia suggests several possibilities as to what may happen in China. First in spite of their resentment and opposition arose bar the new Chinese dictatorship the communist regime is not likely to be overthrown either by an internal revolt or by external pressure. It will be a with us for a long time. Second the new dictatorship will adopt and adapt and cultivate many of the basic characteristics of the long lived Chinese Empire. Among these honored beliefs is the theory that the mandate of heaven in times of disaster and humiliation which passes from one ruling group to another has in this case passed from the nationalists to the communists who have taken power by the hallowed right of revolution. The Communists have made use of the familiar institution of secret organizations

which were very common in old China and they have promoted communism as a new religious faith with a new set of dogmas. And these new sort of dogmas represent absolute truth. So they claim truth which should not be questioned any more than Confucianism should was to be questioned in the old days. The Communists have also emphasized strict moral standards in public and personal affairs. Thus following the precepts of all Confucian morality. But more than this the Chinese have traditionally looked down upon private enterprise and the merchant class generally. The communist take advantage of the fact that most or at least a very great many thoughtful Chinese take socialism or some kind of collectivism as inevitable for China and as on the whole better suited to Chinese conditions than the private enterprise system familiar to the west. And then of course they

associate the problem of the private enterprise system with imperialism and Western domination in Asia. On the other hand the history of Communist Russia has shown that a totalitarian system based upon the omniscience and infallibility of its leaders is driven by its own nature to try relentlessly to extend its control over more and more aspects of life and over a wider and wider areas and larger and larger populations. The Chinese Communists cannot long admitting that they are any less infallible than the Russians and especially over an issue where there is a conflict of Russian and Chinese national interests and there are bound to be many such conflicts. The stronger and the more confident the Chinese Communists become the less likely they are to accept a position which is subordinate to that of Russia.

As Mr. North has indicated Mollison which has developed as the new card of religion in China has a connection with Marxism but it is also a Chinese doctrine. The contradictions which are existing within totalitarianism as they have been exhibited in recent years by the conflicts which have been stirred up within the Communist movement itself. These contradictions all jurisdiction within totalitarianism are bound to become more and more intense and more and more difficult than ever the contradictions of capitalism have been. This has been an analysis of communism in China by Dr. Harold H Fisher chairman of the Hoover Institute and library Stanford University. Dr. Fisher was joined in this analysis by a colleague from the Hoover Institute Robert C. North editor of the Pacific spectator. This was another transcribed program

in the series. People under communism series as a whole was prepared in consultation with scholars from the Russian Institute of Columbia University the Hoover Institute and library at Stanford University and the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. This is Parker weakly speaking. These programs are prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters and are made possible under a grant from the fun for adult education an independent organization established by the Ford Foundation. This is the N A B tape network.